Exploring the benefits of building a data cube towards the efficient risk monitoring and assessment of cultural heritage assets

The Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa (EMMENA) region encompasses three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa). The region is not only strategically vital for political and military forces, but it is also archaeologically and culturally significant due to the large amount of cultural wealth, due to being an important crossroad in archaic times for various civilizations [1]. However, the cultural assets of the region are often susceptible to risks associated either to nature (like land deformation, earthquakes etc.) or to human activity (looting, war atrocities, etc.).

To protect cultural heritage in uncertain crisis scenarios, it is critical to recognize any risk situation early and support the decision-makers and cultural stakeholders with timely, accurate and relevant information, while raising at the same time public awareness on important issues that pertain to the cultural destruction, alteration and/or looting. Towards the end of responding properly in due time to any threats, ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence through its two departments; Big Earth Data Analytics and Cultural Heritage at the current work showcases its efforts in building and exploiting a cultural data cube based and building upon the open-source project called Open Data Cube [2]. Taking advantage of such endeavor, centre’s researchers are able to store, extract and analyse geospatial and satellite data, which due to their cube-shaped transformation can be accessed quickly thus providing a better understanding of any critical risk situations that might affect possible cultural assets. As the scale and pattern of occurrence fluctuate based on the type of disaster, as well as the extent of damage may vary from time to time depending on regional features, the timing of incident(s) and of the response, the proposed work encapsulates various forms of data acquired throughout an entire risk scenario (prior to the event, during the event and post to the event), to ensure the best possible assessment of any ongoing risk(s).

It becomes perceivable that damaged cultural assets cannot be restored to their former condition, hence is crucial to preserve them as much as possible and increase the resilience of cultural properties by reducing the harm brought on by disaster scenarios. Fostering on geospatial advances, the particular work aspires to become a common ground and valuable tool for efficient incident management within the EMMENA region starting from the field of Cultural Heritage and extending to others (i.e., marine security, agriculture, water resources management etc.).

 

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: EΧcellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology.

 

References

[1] - Longuet, R.: Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Netherlands, Dordrecht (2008)

[2] – Open Data Cube, open-source project, https://www.opendatacube.org/about. Last accessed on 8/01/2023.