Assessing erosion risk and its relationships to climate change on archaeological heritage: medieval sites in the Basilicata region

Climate change has among its effects the increasing frequency and intensity of both natural and anthropic hazard, such as landslides, floods, erosion, sea level rise, weathering and fires (Fatorić and Seekamp, 2017). These phenomena pose significant threats to archaeological heritage, as highlighted in scenarios outlined by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

Ancient sites, especially the archaeological settlements dispersed across rural landscapes, are particularly vulnerable to climate-related hazards due to their limited protection compared to cultural heritage present in urban contexts. This is particular significant for buried sites, which can be reasonably identified through surface traces or remote sensing techniques.

In this work, we propose a method based on spatial analysis and remote sensing, to assess the progression of the erosion hazard, that can affect both visible and unexcavated sites (Minervino et al. 2024). The USPED (Unit Stream Power-based Erosion Deposition) model was used to obtain the erosion risk/deposition map of the entire Basilicata region. This was then overlayed with the archaeological site locations in order to assess erosion risk map specifically for archaeological sites of interest

The result is a predictive risk map for the chosen case study that can forecast the future erosion risk in the archaeologically sensitive areas.

The area analysed for the archaeological risk assessment is the Basilicata Region and the sites considered are related to medieval rural settlements. A comprehensive census of these sites - some abandoned and others still inhabited - was carried out based on documentary sources and satellite and LiDAR data.

The work was carried out within the framework of Project PE 0000020 CHANGES, - CUP [B53C22003890006], Spoke 5, PNRR Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU.*

Reference

Fatorić, S.; Seekamp, E. Are cultural heritage and resources threatened by climate change? A systematic literature review. Climatic Change 2017, 142, 227-254, doi:10.1007/s10584-017-1929-9.

Minervino Amodio, A.; Danese, M.; Gioia, D. Past, Present and Climate Change Scenarios: Investigating Erosion Risk on Archaeological Heritage in the Sinni Valley (Basilicata, Italy). In Proceedings of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2024; pp. 412-428.