Impact of climatic-meteorological conditions on the Polish wooden cultural heritage: the example of wooden churches in Krakow

Abstract

Poland has a large number of wooden churches, which are significantly threatened by climate change. In this study, we collect geographic, land-use type, water system, climatic and meteorological data of the study area to qualitatively and quantitatively explore the impact of climatic-meteorological conditions on the Polish wooden cultural heritage, using as an example six wooden churches in Wooden Churches of Southern Małopolska (a World Heritage Site) in Kraków. We found that (i) the region rarely experiences extreme precipitation, is located at the headwaters of Polish rivers, and is on higher ground, which makes it less prone to large flood flows, and therefore the impacts of larger hydraulic shocks are rare; (ii) the core and buffer zones where most of the wooden churches are located are densely forested, with a high risk of fires; and (iii) in terms of the current climatic conditions, the year-round relative humidity in the wooden civil churches in Poland exceeds the protection of the wooden heritage or facilities, and the temperature meets the protection criteria only in summer. At the same time, we propose specific recommendations for the conservation and restoration of Polish wooden churches in terms of damp proofing, insulation and drainage, and this study is expected to provide potential data and theoretical support for future related work.