Climate, Heritage and Environments of Reefs, Islands and Headlands (CHERISH)

Description:

CHERISH is a cross-disciplinary project aiming to raise awareness and understanding of the past, present and near future impacts of climate change, storminess and extreme weather events on the rich cultural heritage of the Irish and Welsh regional seas and coast. It employs innovative techniques to study some of the most iconic coastal locations in Ireland and Wales.

The four main aims of CHERISH are to:

1. Target data and knowledge gaps to raise awareness of heritage in these remote coastal locations.
2. Discover, assess, map and monitor heritage on land and beneath the sea and establish new baseline data and recording standards.
3. Link land and sea.
4. Reconstruct past environments and weather history.

CHERISH works with communities and widely disseminates the results and best practice for future climate change adaptation.

CHERISH project focuses on priority stretches of coastline and sea within the funding area of the Ireland-Wales 2014-2020 Programme. Coastal and island project work focuses on areas of soft and eroding coastline, low-lying areas vulnerable to sea-level rise and inundation, coastal lagoons and wetlands with high palaeoenvironmental potential and areas which represent data and knowledge gaps. Significant cultural heritage sites are represented in each of the areas. Best practices are developed for recording cultural heritage at risk due to weather and coastal processes that are being accelerated by climate change.

A range of guidelines are among the outputs of the project, to document best practice approach across a range of methods and techniques. These guidelines aim to enable others to replicate activities around their own coastal and marine regions, and progress the standardisation of the recording and management of coastal and marine cultural heritage sites.

Project information

Lead

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, UK

Partners

Discovery Programme: Centre for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland, UK

Geological Survey Ireland, UK

Aberystwyth University, UK

Source of funding

2014 - 2020 INTERREG V-A