Preservationmodellen

Preservationmodellen refers to a family of frameworks used to guide preservation decisions across sectors such as cultural heritage, digital preservation, and environmental management. The models formalize how institutions assess what is worth preserving, allocate resources, and respond to threats over time. They integrate knowledge from conservation science, history, and policy, and can be qualitative, quantitative, or a mix.

Common features include establishing preservation objectives and significance, mapping threats and vulnerabilities, modeling outcomes of different preservation actions, and supporting risk assessment and decision-making under uncertainty. They often combine data on material durability, value or significance, costs, and available interventions to compare scenarios and optimise outcomes.

Types of preservationmodellen can be broadly categorized as risk-based, lifecycle or process-based models, economic or cost-benefit models, and scenario or resilience planning models. In digital preservation, models may estimate risk of format obsolescence or data loss, guiding strategies for migration and redundancy. In cultural heritage, models help prioritise conservation work and emergency response planning. In biodiversity or landscape management, they can frame long-term preservation goals under climate or land-use change.

Limitations include data gaps, uncertainties in degradation processes, and the challenge of translating diverse values into a common metric. Successful use depends on stakeholder collaboration, regular updating with new information, and transparency about assumptions.

See also: digital preservation, conservation science, risk assessment, life-cycle assessment.