Cultural Heritage Technical Group

The main goal of the Action is to establish the Cultural Heritage Copernicus Technical Group (CHCTG), the final aim of which is to represent a European user network in the specific field of NCH conservation, management and sustainable exploitation. The main activity of the CHCTG should be the definition and demonstration of (potential) products and services of Copernicus in the underestimated domain of Natural and Cultural Heritage, facilitating a broad exchange around the development and the use of these services and products in Europe.

As clearly highlighted in the recent “Report on the user requirements in the Copernicus domain to support Cultural Heritage management, conservation and protection” (March, 2020), compiled by the CCH‐TF, current remote sensing technologies and monitoring services, accessible to EU citizens via the Copernicus program, offer an incomparable possibility for fostering the protection and valorisation of WHS by delivering products to diverse target stakeholders, including managers and professionals. As reported in the above‐mentioned report, the majority of the requirements identified can be satisfied by existing Service products, and it seems clear that there is no need for a new Core Service dedicated to Cultural Heritage monitoring. However, the report recommends improving the already existing services in order to enable support to the CH domain.

These products can be used to tackle current and emerging challenges, such as natural hazards, climate change, mass tourism and intensive land use. Sensitive WHS located on land or in shallow waters could be monitored with excellent temporal resolution, covering also their surroundings often having a direct or indirect impact on the preservation of the sites. The services would not be limited to existing WHS: regarding CHS, in the last decade’s archaeology has moved from local excavations to landscape archaeology, focused on recognizing patterns in archaeological sites at regional level and based on the analysis of Earth observation data. Nevertheless, in the specific fields of CH a European user requirement coordination would support addressing specific CH user needs into Copernicus monitoring services implementation. Building on the past interaction with the CCH‐TF, also the Entrusted Entities will be invited to be involved in the European Copernicus CH user network, defining an improved Cultural heritage user‐based monitoring capacity.

This specific Action will set up the CHCTG and will promote and aim to establish a European long‐term strategy concerning Earth Observation capacity applied to Cultural and Natural Heritage monitoring, protection, management and sustainable exploitation. Institutional end users would benefit from harmonized and common cost‐effective solutions designed specifically to respond to horizontal needs such as tourism management, security of the site and visitors, monitoring of wildlife, real time frequentation of sites, augmented reality, 3D model’s reconstruction rendering, etc. Driven by user needs and Copernicus, the present Action will be focused in applied use of satellite remote sensing both in the optical and radar domain (including imaging spectrometer data and interferometric SAR). Machine learning and AI methods will be also taken into account, together with opportunities provided by big data analysis (e. g. rapid mapping for political and humanitarian crisis, affecting known WHS).