Industrial heritage assessment and guidelines for the architectural conservation of hydroelectric plantsHydroelectric plants, constructed as modern, industrial, innovative and technological structures of the 20th century, after approximately a century of existence, have become subjects of industrial heritage. Within the article, the interdisciplinary field is approached through the perspective of architectural conservation with consultancies of experts from related disciplines. The study discusses hydroelectric facilities of the past century in terms of industrial heritage focusing on their features, types and elements, investigates the theoretical framework in order to specify criteria for their assessment as cultural heritage, and develops a guideline for the architectural preservation, conservation, restoration and re-use of these structures. The proposed set of criteria and the guideline are applied for 17 selected case studies of dams and powerhouses in Northern ItaliaItaly. The process and the results of the study are discussed with a purpose of serving as a model for further studies on the preservation, conservation and restoration of hydroelectric plants.

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The article investigates nature–culture interrelation over the case studies of hydroelectric plants of the 20th century. In many cases, construction of these structures has evidently resulted in irreversible changes in natural and cultural environments. However, they have also supplied energy for the industrialization of civilizations. After approximately 100 years of existence, it is crucial to determine the future of these hydroelectric facilities, which are artifacts of industrial heritage approaching the end of their productive life spans. The article proposes an analytical approach aiming to sustain the integrity of nature and culture in the conservation of hydroelectric plants, presenting these energy facilities as cultural properties of industrial heritage, and discussing the impact of hydroelectric dams on natural and cultural environments, along with the effects of nature in the deterioration of these structures in order to pave the way to an optimized and sustainable future for the heritage of energy.

By rapidly increasing the production of energy and widely extending the usage of electricity in the 20th century, hydroelectric plants and dams have radically affected the social, technological and industrial aspects of the period. Therefore, as an integral part of industrial heritage, the cultural assets of these energy facilities are required to be preserved. As a requirement of this hypothesis, it is necessary: to develop management strategies for these assets; to provide scientific data and information on these buildings / facilities; to define criteria of 'planned conservation' with long-term preventive measures in order to provide the continuation of the original function as long as possible. Hydroelectric plants are a common subject of interest for several disciplines, such as: engineering, hydrology, ecology, geo-sciences and remote sensing. Therefore, the conservation of the plants also requires the interdisciplinary study and collaboration of these disciplines. Within the study, the considerations of an interdisciplinary approach -such as dam safety, ecological concerns and energy requirements-are presented, and examples from different countries are examined through the framework of architectural conservation, considering cases of dam failures, intended removal of dams and upgrading of facilities. Preventive measures for the planned conservation of hydro electrical facilities such as: constant maintenance of technical components; management of the sediment accumulated in the reservoirs; methods of analysis for the structure of the embankment are introduced briefly, concentrating on gravity dams, in order to provide conclusions for the conservation of Sarıyar Dam and Hydroelectric Plant (1956) in Turkey.