Satellite-Based Methodology for Purposes of Rescue Archaeology of Cultural Heritage Threatened by Dam Construction

Federico Zaina,Deodato Tapete

doi:10.3390/rs14041009

Federico Zaina, Deodato Tapete

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14041009

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Journal: Remote Sensing	Publication Date: Feb 18, 2022
Citations: 14	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Politecnico di Milano, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

Abstract

The destruction of cultural heritage caused by dams represents a major issue especially in an age of climate change and narrowly focused development policies. To counteract this phenomenon, archaeologists and cultural heritage experts have relied upon rescue archaeology practices generally limited to fieldwork methodologies, while remote sensing of satellite imagery remains under-considered. To bridge this gap, we build on a multidisciplinary collaboration exploring the potential of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and open access multispectral satellite imagery, for quantifying the archaeological evidence located within a prospective reservoir area before dam construction. Based on previous research by Marchetti (2020) claiming the necessity for ad hoc protocols to document and monitor the impact of dams on cultural heritage, we selected two complementary situations: the planned dam of Halabiyeh in Syria and the under construction Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Ethiopia. These case studies were analyzed with state-of-the-art methodologies to develop a feasible workflow that may contribute to fostering the use of satellite imagery in operational contexts such as those represented by these particular cases, and be replicated by archaeologists in other areas. The workflow is designed to be integrated to ground-truthing methodologies into two dedicated protocols named Pre-Construction Archaeological Risk Assessment (PCARA) and Pre-Flooding Rescue Archaeological Program (PFRAP) which could eventually become a standard procedure for rescue archaeology in dams areas.

Highlights

Over the last two decades, remote sensing of satellite imagery for cultural heritage risk assessment has significantly increased [1,2,3,4,5]
Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Ethiopia. These case studies were analyzed with state-of-the-art methodologies to develop a feasible workflow that may contribute to fostering the use of satellite imagery in operational contexts such as those represented by these particular cases, and be replicated by archaeologists in other areas
COSMO-SkyMed data may better serve the purposes of rescue archaeology, depending on the specific scale and scope, as we demonstrate in this paper

Summary

Introduction

Over the last two decades, remote sensing of satellite imagery for cultural heritage risk assessment has significantly increased [1,2,3,4,5]. This type of application, framed within a rich corpus of theoretical analyses and guidelines [10,11,12,13,14], and integrated with ground-truthing assessment methodologies [15], allows a comprehensive understanding of all the risks and damage to cultural heritage Despite these major advances, most of the studies focused on selected types of damage, looting [16,17,18], natural hazards [19] and conflict-related [20,21], that were generally deemed to be the most dangerous ones or were more consistently covered by the increased flow of information and media attention in response to the events occurring in different regions (e.g., Syrian or Libyan civil wars). Beyond the utmost importance of those damages, a growing number of studies [10,11,22,23,24,25,26] has recently demonstrated that other types of hazards such as ploughing, construction of roads and buildings or even large-scale infrastructures, have a comparable impact on cultural heritage despite being less considered by the current literature

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