Impact of fire risk on archaeological heritage in the Age of climate change. Geodata science for prediction and development of strategies for protection.

Fires are among the most significant causes leading to significant alterations, both at the level of the natural and built landscape. These in fact induce significant alterations not only on the vegetation cover, but also on fauna, soil, atmosphere, artifacts and, inevitably, economic losses as well. In the context of the archaeological heritage, fires are a cause of extensive damage especially at the territorial scale, on sites and fragments not yet subject to either excavation or reconnaissance campaigns, but also on known sites that suffer from insufficient protection actions.

Traditional methods of assessing fire severity and property damage incur costs in terms of money and time because of the necessary field survey activities. A combination of geodata science and remote sensing, on the other hand, turns out to be an inexpensive and effective tool for modeling fires, understanding their causes and fire evolution.

In this work we use the potential of geodata science methods applied to spatial and satellite data, to analyse past trends and its correlation with environmental and anthropic factors and to forecast fire risk in the context of climate change, considering the evolution of environmental parameters stated from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2022). These findings can be the starting point for the development of forecasting models also with a view to proposing prevention and protection strategies for the archaeological heritage of the Basilicata Region.

 

Reference

IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 3056 pp., doi:10.1017/9781009325844.