Preventive Archaeology Based on Open Remote Sensing Data and Tools: The Cases of Sant’Arsenio (SA) and Foggia (FG), Italy

Abstract

Sentinel-2 data have been used in various fields of human activity. In cultural heritage, their potential is still to be fully explored. This paper aims to illustrate how remote sensing and open source tools are useful for archaeological investigations. The whole issue revolves around the application of satellite (Sentinel-2) and accessory tools for the identification, knowledge and protection of the cultural heritage of two areas of southern Italy: Sant’Arsenio (SA) and Foggia (FG). Both study cases were selected for a specific reason: to demonstrate the usefulness of open data and software for research and preservation of cultural heritage, as in the case of urban sprawl, development of public works (gas- and oil-pipelines, etc.) or intensive use of land for agricultural purposes. The results obtained are relevant for the knowledge improvement and very useful to operate in the field of preventive archaeology, for the evaluation and management of risk, the planning of city-expansion or infrastructures that could damage the buried heritage.

Multitemporal 2016-2018 Sentinel-2 Data Enhancement for Landscape Archaeology: The Case Study of the Foggia Province, Southern Italy

“…In addition, the differences that indicate the presence of possible structures or effects of anthropogenic transformation of landscape were well delineated using the spectral separability (see Figures 5 and 6) applied to the ROIs within the individual bands and the spectral indices. The most performing indices are those involving the Green, Red, and NIR bands, such as (i) crop-band, (ii) soil-band, (iii) RN, (iv) NDVI (Table 2), as expected according to the past investigations [7,8,[11][12][13][14][70][71][72][73][74][75][76]. This is certainly due to the high resolution that the Sentinel-2 satellites have in these bands (10 m).…”

“…The investigation was performed using multi-temporal (2016-2018) Sentinel-2 multispectral dataset, already used in the field of remote sensing-based archaeology [11,12]. They have been herein analyzed using Time Series Analysis and Spectral Un-mixing tools (available in SNAP: https: //step.esa.int/main/doc/tutorials/snap-tutorials/) to cope with the main challenges to face: (i) the fact that the archaeological features linked to buried remains are generally not permanent but only visible in specific observational conditions, and (ii) the need to identify sub-pixel anomalies linked to features of potential archaeological interest.…”

“…Recently, a few studies assessed the potentiality of Sentinel-2 data in cultural heritage domain, including archaeological heritage monitoring, landscape archaeology, and the detection of archaeological proxy indicators, as in: Abate et al, 2019 evaluated the potential of Sentinel-2 data for preventive archaeology on two test areas in Southern Italy comparing diverse approaches to data enhancement, and semiautomatic and automatic feature extractions [12].…”

Identifying Linear Traces of the Han Dynasty Great Wall in Dunhuang Using Gaofen-1 Satellite Remote Sensing Imagery and the Hough Transform

“…Remote sensing (RS) provides a rapid and low-cost way of exploring, mapping and monitoring archaeological features of interest (AOIs) across the world [29]. Research that involves the identification of AOIs increasingly employs aerial photographs and spy satellite images [30][31][32][33] as well as multispectral and hyperspectral imagery [34][35][36][37][38], SAR data [39][40][41][42], and LiDAR products [43][44][45]. RS has unique advantages for detecting the large archaeological sites such as the Silk Road, Grand Canal, Nasca Lines and Great Wall [4].…”

Google Earth Engine as Multi-Sensor Open-Source Tool for Supporting the Preservation of Archaeological Areas: The Case Study of Flood and Fire Mapping in Metaponto, Italy

“…Several techniques have been used and are well described in the literature: the use of historical maps and aerial photos, associated with GIS (Geographic Information System) to understand landscape changes (urban sprawl, land use, subsidence phenomena, and geomorphological variations etc.) over time, for CH risk assessment or management [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]; the use of multisensor and multitemporal satellite data such as declassified optical data [ 14 ] and medium-high resolution multispectral data [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ], or SAR (synthetic aperture radar) data [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ], for anthropogenic (land use change, destruction, looting) or natural (floods, subsidence, fires, etc.) risk assessment.…”