Location:  A3G-2 Altiero Spinelli Building, European Parliament, Brussels
Date: 01/10/2015

Underwater cultural heritage encompasses a vast legacy of millions of ancient shipwrecks, sunken cities, prehistoric sites and submerged landscapes. It holds not only information about the history of humankind and the social importance of the oceans but also about the history of climate change and its impact on humanity.

At the High-level Conference of EU Ministers of Tourism, held in March 2014 in Athens, this submerged heritage has moreover been recognized as important for the diversification of coastal and maritime tourism, one of the priorities in current tourism development.  Today underwater cultural heritage is however endangered and still insufficiently protected, known and researched. Moreover, responsible adaptive reuse and public access needs facilitation to ensure that the opportunities underwater cultural heritage holds are seized. To increase awareness of the topic and facilitate knowledge exchange among experts, researchers and decision makers, an EU - UNESCO Information Meeting on Underwater Cultural Heritage was organized and hosted at the European Parliament on 1 October 2015. The objectives of the meeting were to provide information about latest trends in the protection, use and understanding of submerged archaeological sites, ranging from newest advances in 3D modelling of sites, new discoveries concerning historic climate change and submerged prehistory to the development of robot archaeologists able to dive in the deep sea.

More information is available on the Maritime Forum website