Copernicus in Support of Monitoring, Protection, and Management of Cultural and Natural Heritage

Abstract

The current Copernicus evolution aims to meet horizontal users’ needs in order to widen uptake of the Copernicus monitoring products by non-traditional users. In 2019, the European Commission initiated a coordinated action to evaluate the current and potential uptakes of Copernicus products, and for the monitoring and protection of European Cultural and Natural Heritage in a future climate change scenario. An interaction matrix was developed, circulated to and fulfilled by users in order to collect their needs and identify the main gaps in terms of monitoring data and information. The results show what users require from Copernicus to face the daily challenges of preserving and protecting CH features. Moreover, the interaction with users identified a data and information access model that best maximizes uptake by the users. The present work illustrates the user requirement coordination mechanism adopted by the European Copernicus Cultural Heritage Task Force; synthesises the results achieved in terms of gap analysis; and assesses the current and potential uptake of Copernicus data, services, and products in support of the monitoring and protection of European cultural heritage. It also provides recommendation about the implementation of infrastructural solutions to improve Copernicus services data and information access by cultural heritage users.

Climate Change and Cultural Heritage: Methods and Approaches for Damage and Risk Assessment Addressed to a Practical Application

“…Data and products from Copernicus services, specifically, Climate Change (C3S) and Atmosphere Monitoring (CAMS) also represent a significant source of data for the damage assessment of cultural heritage by providing climate and pollution data at 10 × 10 km of spatial resolution [28]. The Copernicus services ensure coverage of remote areas or those not accessible (such as areas under armed conflict) and where there is the lack of an in situ environmental monitoring network.…”

Monitoring of Damages to Cultural Heritage across Europe Using Remote Sensing and Earth Observation: Assessment of Scientific and Grey Literature

“…With this goal, for example, the "Copernicus Cultural Heritage Task Force" was established in order to assess the current and future potential of Copernicus data, services, and products in support of the monitoring and protection of cultural heritage. While not focusing exclusively on monitoring hazards and damages to cultural heritage, the final report and the associated journal paper [61,62] analyze how existing Copernicus data, services, and products could satisfy those requirements; identify possible enhancement and customization of Copernicus products within already-operational Core Services; and analyze possible synergies with national, European or international space-related solutions to fill the gaps. An interesting avenue of research could be on how this analysis of users' needs would impact future generations of satellite missions and services delivered based on their data and contribute to enhanced exploitation to monitor hazards and damage to cultural heritage and for condition assessment.…”

Paving the Way for Climate Neutral and Resilient Historic Districts

“…To make historic districts resilient, practitioners, researchers, and policy makers need reliable information that can inform decision making. This information currently needs to be collected from different sources, e.g., historical archives, earth observation data and products, census data, interviews with contemporary witnesses, climate model outputs, environmental monitoring, or other sources 27 , 28 . These sources might not be accessible to all relevant actors, might provide data in incompatible formats, data that spans different time intervals, or data with incompatible spatial resolutions.…”

“…For the practitioner side, it is necessary to provide specific training opportunities as a permanent option. This includes the use, implementation, and combination of different assessment methods, research results in general, as well as the use of available public data, e.g., from Copernicus 27 , the future European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, as well as potential national, regional, or local resilience observatories. In conjunction with increased training opportunities for practitioners, researchers need to be able to provide their findings in a language and format appropriate for the relevant audience.…”