An overview of satellite synthetic aperture radar remote sensing in archaeology: From site detection to monitoring

Abstract

Abstract In the last two decades, archaeology has benefited from the development of earth observation (EO) technologies, including optical multispectral, LiDAR and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing. The latter is gaining the attention of an expanding community of scientists and archaeologists due to the increasing availability of multi-platform, multi-band, multi-polarization and very high-resolution satellite SAR data. It is increasingly becoming an important tool in archaeology owing to specific characteristic of its operational modalities, e.g. all-weather, penetration, polarization and interferometry. However, compared to other EO technologies, SAR is encountering more difficulties in realizing its full potential for archaeological applications due to the greater complexity of data processing and interpretation tools. In this paper, SAR-based approaches for the reconnaissance of archaeological signs and SAR interferometry for the monitoring of cultural heritage sites are discussed. Ways and means to reduce complexity of data processing and interpretation tools are also explored.