Rising damp in Portuguese cultural heritage – a flood risk map

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a critical review of a criterion of risk, created to assess the flood risk of the international heritage building. In order to evaluate this criterion, it was applied to a sample of Portuguese building heritage. Design/methodology/approach – This effort will start with the definition of the most important historical buildings in Portugal, its location and a full study about its constitution considering not only the materials they are made to but also the layers and the influence of the porosity/porometry for the drying process. Then it will also crucial the classification of the flood risk occurrence having in mind the previous information. A mapping will be made with the classification here developed. Findings – This work presents a critical review of the main information related with the Portuguese monuments classified as “National Monuments”. A new empirical model was proposed takes into account all of the factors defined as the most influent in flood r...