French project uses AI to visualise how climate change will affect heritage sites

French conservation specialists are developing an AI model to predict how climate change will affect cultural heritage sites, an initiative led by Ann Bourgès of the French Ministry of Culture’s Centre for Research and Restoration of France’s Museums. Bourgès said the idea emerged from European Commission discussions four years ago and aims to quantify and forecast deterioration over the next 50 to 100 years. In 2022, the team launched two doctoral projects and recruited PhD researchers Adèle Cormier and David Roqui, who are now in their final year, to monitor conditions at three French heritage sites and train the model using environmental data and material-change observations. The project’s methodology is intended to be open-source, and includes work at Strasbourg Cathedral’s 13th-century spire base and the Bibracte archaeological site near Autun in Burgundy, with a coastal site to be added later.

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