‘Looting marks’ in space-borne SAR imagery: Measuring rates of archaeological looting in Apamea (Syria) with TerraSAR-X Staring Spotlight

Tapete, Deodato; Cigna, Francesca; Donoghue, Daniel N.M.

doi:10.1016/j.rse.2016.02.055

Cited by 87 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…This was also recently demonstrated by Tapete et al [14] using TSX staring spotlight data to measure the rates of looting activities in Syria. As such, the staring spotlight mode might pave the way towards an increased use of SAR in archaeology.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Discernibility of Burial Mounds in High-Resolution X-Band SAR Images for Archaeological Prospections in the Altai Mountains

Balz

Caspari

et al. 2016

Remote Sensing

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Abstract:The Altai Mountains are a heritage-rich archaeological landscape with monuments in almost every valley. Modern nation state borders dissect the region and limit archaeological landscape analysis to intra-national areas of interest. Remote sensing can help to overcome these limitations. Due to its high precision, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data can be a very useful tool for supporting archaeological prospections, but compared to optical imagery, the detectability of sites of archaeological interest is limited. We analyzed the limitations of SAR using TerraSAR-X images in different modes. Based on ground truth, the discernibility of burial mounds was analyzed in different SAR acquisition modes. We show that very-high-resolution TerraSAR-X staring spotlight images are very well suited for the task, with >75% of the larger mounds being discernible, while in images with a lower spatial resolution only a few large sites can be detected, at rates below 50%.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Discernibility of Burial Mounds in High-Resolution X-Band SAR Images for Archaeological Prospections in the Altai Mountains

Balz

Caspari

et al. 2016

Remote Sensing

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“…There has also been a growing awareness of the potential of remote sensing to detect and monitor damage and disturbances to archaeological sites and thus a growing emphasis on its use for these purposes [21][22][23]. Archaeologists in this region increasingly rely on space-borne data to give a wide-scale view of heritage.…”

Section: Remote Sensing and Heritage Recording In The Mena Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Above and on the Ground: Geospatial Methods for Recording Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa

et al. 2017

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Abstract:The EAMENA (Endangered Archaeology of the Middle East and North Africa) project is a collaboration between the Universities of Leicester, Oxford and Durham; it is funded by the Arcadia Fund and the Cultural Protection Fund. This paper explores the development of the EAMENA methodology, and discusses some of the problems of working across such a broad region. We discuss two main case studies: the World Heritage site of Cyrene illustrates how the project can use satellite imagery (dating from the 1960s to 2017), in conjunction with published data to create a detailed set of database records for a single site and, in particular, highlights the impact of modern urban expansion across the region. Conversely, the Homs Cairns case study demonstrates how the EAMENA methodology also works at an extensive scale, and integrates image interpretation (using imagery dating from the 1960s to 2016), landuse mapping and field survey (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) to record and analyse the condition of hundreds of features across a small study region. This study emphasises the impact of modern agricultural and land clearing activities. Ultimately, this paper assesses the effectiveness of the EAMENA approach, evaluating its potential success against projects using crowd-sourcing and automation for recording archaeological sites, and seeks to determine the most appropriate methods to use to document sites and assess disturbances and threats across such a vast and diverse area.

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“…Although the advantages of the Staring Spotlight TerraSAR-X SAR data have been demonstrated by different applications such as absolute height estimation [39] and measuring rates of archaeological looting [40], the examples in terms of PSI landslide monitoring are still rare. To our knowledge, the work presented in this paper is the first attempt to study the possible benefits of SHR SAR images for landslide monitoring, especially regarding the aspects of pixel density and capability to detect PSs within decorrelated areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landslide Monitoring Using Multi-Temporal SAR Interferometry with Advanced Persistent Scatterers Identification Methods and Super High-Spatial Resolution TerraSAR-X Images

et al. 2018

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Landslides are one of the most common and dangerous threats in the world that generate considerable damage and economic losses. An efficient landslide monitoring tool is the Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) or Persistent Scatter Interferometry (PSI). However, landslides are usually located in mountainous areas and the area of interest can be partially or even heavily vegetated. The inherent temporal decorrelation that dramatically reduces the number of Persistent Scatters (PSs) of the scene limits in practice the application of this technique. Thus, it is crucial to be able to detect as much PSs as possible that can be usually embedded in decorrelated areas. High resolution imagery combined with efficient pixel selection methods can make possible the application of DInSAR techniques in landslide monitoring. In this paper, different strategies to identify PS Candidates (PSCs) have been employed together with 32 super high-spatial resolution (SHR) TerraSAR-X (TSX) images, staring-spotlight mode, to monitor the Canillo landslide (Andorra). The results show that advanced PSI strategies (i.e., the temporal sub-look coherence (TSC) and temporal phase coherence (TPC) methods) are able to obtain much more valid PSs than the classical amplitude dispersion (D A ) method. In addition, the TPC method presents the best performance among all three full-resolution strategies employed. The SHR TSX data allows for obtaining much higher densities of PSs compared with a lower-spatial resolution SAR data set (Sentinel-1A in this study). Thanks to the huge amount of valid PSs obtained by the TPC method with SHR TSX images, the complexity of the structure of the Canillo landslide has been highlighted and three different slide units have been identified. The results of this study indicate that the TPC approach together with SHR SAR images can be a powerful tool to characterize displacement rates and extension of complex landslides in challenging areas.

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‘Looting marks’ in space-borne SAR imagery: Measuring rates of archaeological looting in Apamea (Syria) with TerraSAR-X Staring Spotlight

Cited by 87 publications

References 17 publications

Discernibility of Burial Mounds in High-Resolution X-Band SAR Images for Archaeological Prospections in the Altai Mountains

Discernibility of Burial Mounds in High-Resolution X-Band SAR Images for Archaeological Prospections in the Altai Mountains

From Above and on the Ground: Geospatial Methods for Recording Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa

Landslide Monitoring Using Multi-Temporal SAR Interferometry with Advanced Persistent Scatterers Identification Methods and Super High-Spatial Resolution TerraSAR-X Images

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