Special Issue "Remote, Proximal Sensing and Geophysics for Cultural Heritage Knowledge and Conservation"

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 29 October 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Luca Piroddi
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari, 09123 Cagliari, Italy
Interests: applied geophysics; TIR remote sensing; proximal sensing; natural hazards; cultural heritage; archaeological prospection; buildings and civil structures monitoring
Dr. Nasser Abu Zeid
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Physics and Earth Sciences, University of Ferrara, Italy
Interests: applied and engineering geology; groundwater and environmental related issues; archeology; cultural heritage; microzonation and local site effects; deep mining and geophysical data analysis
Dr. Patrizia Capizzi
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Interests: digital signal processing exploration geophysics geophysics applied geophysics inverse problems
Dr. Marilena Cozzolino
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Human, Social and Educational Science, University of Molise, Via De Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso, Italy
Interests: applied geophysics; archaeo geophysics; landscape geophysics; ground penetrating radar; electrical resistivity tomography; electromagnetic (EM) induction method; integrated geophysical methods; archaeological prospections; inverse problems; photogrammetry; remote sensing and GIS
Dr. Sebastiano D’Amico
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Dr. Sergio Vincenzo Calcina
E-Mail
Guest Editor
University of Cagliari, Italy
Interests: applied geophysics; ground-based radar interferometry; vibration analysis; microtremor methods; non-destructive testing and micro-geophysics
Dr. Ilaria Catapano
E-Mail
Guest Editor
Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment, National Research Council of Italy, Napoli, Italy
Interests: signal processing; non-invasive electromagnetic diagnostics; airborne and in situ radar imaging; reconstruction of geometrical and electromagnetic features of targets by means of microwave and terahertz devices; development of data processing strategies and methodologies; image interpretation; non-invasive subsurface radar surveys of cultural heritage assets
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Applications of non-invasive sensing techniques to explore internal and superficial structures of precious and delicate targets are becoming a very important research field in the context of Cultural Heritage knowledge and conservation. Moreover, their capability to infer the changes in geometrical and physical properties across the inspected surfaces or volumes is the unifying tool that allows us to discover new historical sites or to image their spatial extension and material features at different scales, from landscape to artifacts.

Knowledge and documentation issues associated with Cultural Heritage assets need for reliable non-invasive techniques that jointly provide a fundamental tool to assure the preservation of these assets and to collect more comprehensive information.

Based on analogous physical principles and similar knowledge goals, diagnostics can work alone or in integrated protocols across different scales: satellite and aerial remote sensing of the exposed surfaces (and immediate subsurface) at potential Cultural Heritage sites are often integrated by geophysical imaging of the shallowest layers of the inspected medium to reconstruct underground/underwater features of potential interest. Depending on the dimensions of the sites and the logistics, automated high-resolution geophysical measurement systems have been developed in the last decades. Quite recently, diagnostics have been customized to small targets such as historical buildings elements or decorative finishes, paintings, statues or ancient papers. In some of these cases, the contribution of the so-called micro-geophysical methods is still relevant to knowledge and documentation of cultural sites. For very thin targets, proximal sensing techniques are a very feasible method to be chosen. In some of these cases, proximal sensing techniques can work in rare configurations like the transmission modes.

Geophysical and micro-geophysical methods are also very useful to assess conservation and stability issues of precious artifacts, allowing to inspect soil foundations, mechanical properties of structural elements, possible subsidence issues, seismic site effects and dynamic structural behavior. For the same topics, sometimes they can also be applied jointly with remote and proximal sensing techniques like satellite or ground-based (real and synthetic aperture) radar interferometry. Some important advances are linked to the growing integration of geomatics and image processing techniques in diagnostics and documentation protocols, from landscape recognition to artifacts study.

Finally, the integration of different diagnostics techniques has recently led to advances in many aspects of knowledge construction and application developed specifically for Cultural Heritage targets, including data collection, processing, visualization, interpretation, data fusion, scenarios reconstruction, virtual fruition and musealization, virtual restoration, hazards reduction, preservation and repair actions.

In this Special Issue, we invite contributions focusing on all recent and upcoming advances in the application of remote/proximal sensing and geophysics/micro-geophysics for Cultural Heritage reconstruction and diagnostics. Contributions involving different methods and approaches are particularly welcome, both theoretical and selected case studies showing the attained achievements    for knowledge and conservation issues following their use modelling on controlled physical models or numerical simulations and processing advances are also of interest for the special issue.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the followings:

  • Methods and techniques for Cultural Heritage knowledge and conservation;
  • Geophysical and micro-geophysical methods;
  • Ground Penetrating Radar;
  • Electrical resistivity methods;
  • Magnetic and electromagnetic methods;
  • Seismic and acoustic methods;
  • Wide area geophysics;
  • Archaeological surveys;
  • Optical and Infrared Photogrammetry;
  • Infrared thermography;
  • Terahertz and microwave imaging;
  • Geomatics for imaging (LiDAR, Laser Scanner, Structure for Motion, etc.);
  • Image and data processing;
  • NDT and diagnostics methods;
  • Satellite and aerial Remote Sensing;
  • Vulnerability studies;
  • Satellite and terrestrial radar interferometry (RAR, SAR);
  • Radar polarimetry;
  • Multispectral and Hyperspectral Remote Sensing;
  • Motion magnification technique;
  • Integrated methods;
  • Virtual restoration and musealization.
Dr. Luca Piroddi
Dr. Nasser Abu Zeid
Dr. Patrizia Capizzi
Dr. Marilena Cozzolino
Dr. Sebastiano D’Amico
Dr. Sergio Vincenzo Calcina
Dr. Ilaria Catapano
Dr. Rosa Lasaponara
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Regional-Scale Systematic Mapping of Archaeological Mounds and Detection of Looting Using COSMO-SkyMed High Resolution DEM and Satellite Imagery
Remote Sens. 2021, 13(16), 3106; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13163106 - 06 Aug 2021
Viewed by 511
Abstract
“Tells” are archaeological mounds formed by deposition of large amounts of anthropogenic material and sediments over thousands of years and are the most important and prominent features in Near and Middle Eastern archaeological landscapes. In the last decade, archaeologists have exploited free-access global [...] Read more.
“Tells” are archaeological mounds formed by deposition of large amounts of anthropogenic material and sediments over thousands of years and are the most important and prominent features in Near and Middle Eastern archaeological landscapes. In the last decade, archaeologists have exploited free-access global digital elevation model (DEM) datasets at medium resolution (i.e., up to 30 m) to map tells on a supra-regional scale and pinpoint tentative tell sites. Instead, the potential of satellite DEMs at higher resolution for this task was yet to be demonstrated. To this purpose, the 3 m resolution imaging capability allowed by the Italian Space Agency’s COSMO-SkyMed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation in StripMap HIMAGE mode was used in this study to generate DEM products of enhanced resolution to undertake, for the first time, a systematic mapping of tells and archaeological deposits. The demonstration is run at regional scale in the Governorate of Wasit in central Iraq, where the literature suggested a high density of sites, despite knowledge gaps about their location and spatial distribution. Accuracy assessment of the COSMO-SkyMed DEM is provided with respect to the most commonly used SRTM and ALOS World 3D DEMs. Owing to the 10 m posting and the consequent enhanced observation capability, the COSMO-SkyMed DEM proves capable to detect both well preserved and levelled or disturbed tells, standing out for more than 4 m from the surrounding landscape. Through the integration with CORONA KH-4B tiles, 1950s Soviet maps and recent Sentinel-2 multispectral images, the expert-led visual identification and manual mapping in the GIS environment led to localization of tens of sites that were not previously mapped, alongside the computation of a figure as up-to-date as February 2019 of the survived tells, with those affected by looting. Finally, this evidence is used to recognize hot-spot areas of potential concern for the conservation of tells. To this purpose, we upgraded the spatial resolution of the observations up to 1 m by using the Enhanced Spotlight mode to collect a bespoke time series. The change detection tests undertaken on selected clusters of disturbed tells prove how a dedicated monitoring activity may allow a regular observation of the impacts due to anthropogenic disturbance (e.g., road and canal constructions or ploughing). Full article
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Article
Multitemporal–Multispectral UAS Surveys for Archaeological Research: The Case Study of San Vincenzo Al Volturno (Molise, Italy)
Remote Sens. 2021, 13(14), 2719; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13142719 - 10 Jul 2021
Viewed by 783
Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles are currently the most used solution for cultural heritage in the field of close range and low altitude acquisitions. This work shows data acquired by multitemporal and multispectral aerial surveys in the archaeological site of San Vincenzo al Volturno (Molise, [...] Read more.
Unmanned aerial vehicles are currently the most used solution for cultural heritage in the field of close range and low altitude acquisitions. This work shows data acquired by multitemporal and multispectral aerial surveys in the archaeological site of San Vincenzo al Volturno (Molise, Italy). The site is one of the most important medieval archaeological sites in the world. It is a monastic settlement that was particularly rich during the early Middle Ages, and is famous for its two full-frescoed crypts which represent a milestone in the history of medieval art. Thanks to the use of multispectral aerial photography at different times of the year, an area not accessible to archaeological excavation has been investigated. To avoid redundancy of information and reduce the number of data to be analysed, a method based on spectral and radiometric enhancement techniques combined with a selective principal component analysis was used for the identification of useful information. The combination of already published archaeological data and new remote sensing discoveries, has allowed to better define the situation of the abbey during the building phases of the 8th/9th century and 11th century, confirming and adding new data to the assumptions made by archaeologists. Full article
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