Effects of Water on Natural Stone in the Built Environment—A Review

Abstract

The present work reviews studies with information on the effects of water by itself on stones of the built environment both to assess the impact of this substance and to discuss possible implications for conservation. The analysis concerns empirical results from previous publications dealing with the effects, on several rock types, of freeze–thaw, wetting, erosion by running water and substances resulting from the water–stone interaction. Laboratory studies have shown that water freezing can cause physical damage even in low porosity rocks. As far as we know, this is the first review that considers comparative laboratory studies of freeze–thaw and salt crystallization on the same rock specimens, and these point to lower erosive effects than salt weathering, as freeze–thaw can provoke catastrophic cracking. Wetting has shown strong damaging effects on some fine-grained clastic rocks. Erosive features have been reported for rain exposition and for some fountain settings albeit, in these field studies, it could be difficult to assess the contribution of pollutants transported by water (this assessment could have meaningful implications for stone conservation, especially in fountain settings). Water also interacts with stone constituents, namely sulfides and soluble salts, releasing substances that could impact those stones. Sulfides are a relatively frequent issue for slates and granites, and our observations suggest that for this last rock type, this issue is mostly associated with the presence of enclaves and, hence, avoiding the surface exposition of such enclaves could solve the problem.