Abstract
The distribution of free and open access radar satellite datasets, like those of Sentinel-1, has provided new opportunities for monitoring archaeological sites and monuments in a systematic way, and especially after earthquake events. While optical sensors are established in the scientific literature and radar sensors are lately introduced in the relevant literature, the role of satellite-driven ready products is still limited discussed. With the continuous improvement of remote sensing satellite data quality and accuracy, high-resolution data needs to be processed, while at the same time, this required high computational complexity. In respect to this, over the last years, various efforts have been made to support high-performance cloud-based processing, providing to the end-users ready products in a short time. This study presents the results from the exploitation of a relevant new cloud platform, namely the Hybrid Pluggable Processing Pipeline (HyP3) system that integrates GAMMA software, for detecting ground displacement within archaeological sites in Cyprus, after a 5.6 magnitude scale earthquake in 2015. Ascending and descending pairs of Sentinel-1 images, acquired before and after the event, were processed through the HyP3 platform, revealing small relative ground displacements in the area under study. The processing chain was performed in less than 1 h -per pair- on the HyP3 system, indicating that similar approaches could be beneficial in the future to support cultural heritage management of large areas.
Highlights
E ARTH observation is well established in the literature for monitoring purposes of large areas [1], [2]
The latest can be nowadays realized as the technological trend is moving toward big-data cloud-platforms [23]–[25] that can provide in short time satellite-driven ready products
Cyprus was affected by strong earthquakes, since antiquity [36], as it is located on a seismic zone on the margin of two tectonic plates, namely the Anatolian plate on the north and the African plate on the south, forming the so-called the “Cyprus arc.”
Summary
E ARTH observation is well established in the literature for monitoring purposes of large areas [1], [2]. The latest can be nowadays realized as the technological trend is moving toward big-data cloud-platforms [23]–[25] that can provide in short time satellite-driven ready products. These platforms enable end-users to have access to high-performance cloud computers, initially for the radiometric and geometric calibration of the radar images, before the generation of interferograms and vertical displacements. Already the use of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) [27] has been presented in the literature for archaeological and heritage management studies [28]. Last comes the conclusion section, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of the study
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