Long-term monitoring of protected cultural heritage environments in Norway: Development of methods and first-time application

Since 2005, Norway has had a political goal to minimize the annual loss of cultural heritage sites and environments due to removal, destruction or decay. The rate of loss should be less than 0.5% by 2020. On behalf of the Norwegian Directorate of Cultural Heritage we have developed methods for data collection and management to monitor cultural heritage environments. The complementary set of methods include interpretation of aerial photographs, qualitative and quantitative initial and repeat landscape photography, analysis of public statistical data, field registration of cultural heritage objects, field control of aerial photo generated map data, and stakeholder participation. In 2015, we applied these methods for the first time to the historical clustered farm settlement of Havrå at Osterfjorden in Hordaland County, West-Norway. In 1998, Havrå became the first cultural heritage environment to be protected in Norway. The size of the area is about 2 km2, and the reference year for the desired status of protection is c.1950. All types of data collected indicate challenges in terms of maintaining or reconstructing the desired status of different parts of the area with its tangible and intangible landscape elements and values. Interpretation of aerial photographs shows that farmland and other open areas have turned into forest, which has more than tripled in size between 1951 and 2013. Built-up area has increased to a similar degree, but is much smaller in total. Repeat landscape photography illustrates changes observed from aerial photos, and shows both good maintenance and unfavorable change in the built-up environments. Field survey included 75 buildings, 56 of which were still usable; however, only 42 in good shape. An interview survey among owners of the 8 farm units represented on the site revealed a complicated history of land management during the last four to six decades, a broad spectrum of opinions on management of tangible and intangible landscape values and a rather low degree of mutual communication. The methods are documented in a handbook and can be applied as a toolbox, where different methods can be assigned different degrees of importance dependent on local situations, e.g. depending on the character of the area in focus. Monitoring intervals can also be defined with respect to the situation of the individual areas.