"Economic heritage impact assessment" as a tool for evaluating the impacts on the great requalification project of the coastal cities, Unesco sites. The case study of Torre Annunziata, in the gulf of Naples

This article starts from the study of the historic port cities, that today are facing the challenge of the urban waterfront requalification, through the preservation of the cultural and landscape heritage.
The recommendations on the “Historic Urban Landscape”, and the operating tools promoted by the ICOMOS “Guidance on Heritage Impact Assessments for Cultural World Heritage Properties” of 2011, configure themselves as the most recent dispositions regarding the preservation, protection and enhancement of the cultural heritage (Fusco Girard, 2010). The ICOMOS Guide it was considered the most suitable tool for evaluating the impacts of the big requalification project of the urban waterfront on the cultural heritage. To fully understand this tool it was made an application for evaluating the impacts of Pompeii Great Project on the waterfront of Torre Annunziata, a coastal city in the Gulf of Naples, UNESCO Site. After this analysis phase it follows a reflection on how to improve the Heritage Impact Assessment as a tool able to evaluate not only the cultural impacts, but also the economic ones, so we can speak of “economy of the cultural heritage”. The last proposal is that of supporting the process of “Heritage Impact Assessment” with an evaluation of economic impacts, through an analysis of costs/benefits, for estimating in a monetary terms, the benefit of the investments into the preservation of the historic urban heritage of the coastal cities, proposing an “Economic Heritage Impact Assessment” (EHIA). This method was elaborated from the author, into the PHD thesis “The Historic Urban Landscape of the coastal cities: challenges and opportunities”. The case of Torre Annunziata offers the possibility to overcome the mere evaluation of the cultural impacts proposed by the ICOMOS.