Ekodenge is a Turkish SME with a team of sustainability experts, providing consultancy, engineering, architecture, and software solution services.

Created in 1996, Ekodenge is headquartered in Ankara, at the Hacettepe Technopark research and business centre. The company can count on a multi-disciplinary team of 40 people, including architects, chemical, environmental and mechanical engineers.

The challenge

Climate change is exposing historical and cultural sites to threats such as floods, wildfires and heatwaves, among others. Data on land cover is critical to understand these hazards, as well as to monitor changes around cultural heritage sites.

Even though spatial information becomes more and more abundant thanks to global Earth Observation (EO) systems, spatial data collected by different entities for different regions of the world still lack standardisation and harmonisation.

Since 2019 Ekodenge is part of the Consortium implementing the Horizon 2020 SHELTER project (Sustainable Historic Environments holistic reconstruction through Technological Enhancement and community-based Resilience). The project involves 23 partners from 10 countries.

SHELTER includes five test beds, representing the main climatic and environmental challenges in Europe and different heritage’s typologies.

Ekodenge is responsible for creating a risk assessment tool visualised on a Geographic Information System (GIS), containing information on land use, that can used to foresee resilience and threats to the heritage and to plan recovery measures. To do this, Ekodenge needs accurate information on land cover in the sites targeted by the project.

The satellite solution

To build the platform for disaster risk management in the areas targeted by the project, Ekodenge uses data on land cover and climate and historical data from the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites of the Copernicus programme.

The historical data allow them to retrace soil movements, changes in landcover, and weather events, such as heatwaves and floods, that damaged the cultural heritage sites in the past. These data are integrated in the datadriven platform for disasters risk management produced within the project.

The Copernicus data is particularly useful for this kind of assessments, since the data are freely available across Europe and accessible in the same format. This means that the data acquired through Copernicus allow Ekodenge to calibrate all different and site-specific data to be used into the same platform. Moreover, the information contained in the platform for each site can be easily compared and updated.

The results

Thanks to Copernicus data, Ekodenge can acquire data on land cover for the five different areas targeted in the open labs in a harmonised and standardised format.

The platform not only includes information relevant for safeguarding cultural heritage, but also for protecting natural heritage and human settlements from natural disasters and climate change at the regional level.

The GIS platform developed by the partners of the SHELTER project will contribute to building a model to improve the resilience of cultural heritage sites through better decision-making processes and policies applicable at local and regional levels.

All data will be made available on an IT platform after the project ends in 2023. Based on the information regrouped in the platform, the project partners will propose measures to increase the resilience of cultural heritage sites and make recommendations on “building back better” techniques.

The platform is intended to be used by all the stakeholders operating in the sites targeted by the SHELTER project, such as policymakers, fire brigades, construction companies, and research institutes.

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Operating under the authority of the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese is responsible for protecting, preserving, and studying all antiquities in the islands of the Dodecanese.

Rodini was part of the necropolis of the ancient city of Rhodes, in the largest island of the Dodecanese. The area includes the remains of some of the ancient monumental graves and cave sanctuaries, and a park in a valley crossed by a torrent. Shortly before the torrent meets the sea, a bridge built in Roman times is still in use today, being one of the main entry points to the modern city of Rhodes.

The challenge

Soaring temperatures, increasingly frequent floods, summer fires and storms, sea-level rise, and geological movements represent major threats to archaeological remains and historical beauties.

In Rodini, throughout the centuries, summer fires, storms and floods eroded the archaeological remains, which are also severely threatened by land displacements.

Due to the earthquakes, part of the Mausoleum complex in Rodini has collapsed. Another nearby grave complex presents a cracked rock façade, which could cause the crumbling of the grave monuments cut in it. Also the roman bridge, even though statically stable, is presenting fissures on the inner sides of the arches, which makes its monitoring necessary.

To prevent further damage to the monuments in Rodini and to adopt effective conservation measures, the Ephorate needed accurate and up-to-date information on land deformation in the area.

The satellite solution

In 2019, the Ephorate of Antiquities established a collaboration with the National Technical University of Athens, which resulted in their participation in the EU Horizon 2020 HYPERION project.

In Rhodes, HYPERION aimed at recording the damage to the monuments in Rodini that is directly related to the natural environment and the microclimate of the area, at assessing their degree of risk and the rate of their deterioration over time, and at building tools to plan for conservation and restoration measures.

More than 100 Sentinel images from 2016 to 2019 allowed the scientists from the University to create a land deformation map of Rodini and to assess the level of ground deformation in the area. The map shows a 10mm uplift between 2016 and 2019, which clearly affects the structural integrity of the monuments there.

The results

The ground deformation maps classify the level of ground deformation with different colours, and allow users to zoom on specific locations to know how the ground is moving there.

The maps serve as a non-invasive tool to collect the information needed to preserve cultural heritage in Rhodes. The movements are assessed with millimetre accuracy, providing the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese with extremely precise data on the structural stress affecting the monuments. This information can be consulted for a specific day or as an annual average.

The Ephorate can identify the structures that need more urgent action and propose measures to secure and restore the monuments. For example, they will take action to stabilise the monuments that are more affected by land deformation in the ancient necropolis in Rodini and will ask the Municipality to stop or lighten the traffic on the Roman bridge.

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Blue Thread

Blue Thread S.r.l. is a small Italian company based in Rome and founded in 2019. The company’s mission is to develop technological solutions for the maritime and nautical world. By using a multi-technological approach that integrates different knowhows, the company aims at responding to the multiple challenges that the maritime domain faces, from improving navigation to monitoring the access to ports and remote marine areas.

Blue Thread collaborates with international and national research centres, such as the University of Tor Vergata in Rome and the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella in Turin. In addition, Blue Thread also developed a fleet monitoring application prototype for sailing races with a wide range of features, such as an optimised start strategy, a lay line determination, and a racecourse registration.

The challenge

According to the FAO’s definition, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are marine geographical areas that need greater protection than the surrounding waters for biodiversity conservation or fishery management purposes. In its geographic diversity, Italy counts around 29 MPAs across the country. Each of these areas is classified according to the protection needed, based on natural, geomorphological, physical, scientific, economic, and educational relevance.

Monitoring and safeguarding MPAs is a complicated task for the local authorities responsible for these areas, due to their extension and to the financial resources required to protect their biodiversity. When it comes to MPAs that are touristic destinations, like the MPA in Porto Cesareo in the Apulia region, monitoring the flux of tourists, their activities, and behaviours, becomes quite challenging.

The satellite solution

In 2019, Blue Thread developed Blue Discovery, a GNSS-based mobile app free to download and available for IOS and Android. The app is complemented by a web-GIS and an Operational Portal that could be managed by the MPA authorities. This was the case for the MPA of Porto Cesareo, that tested the app during the Summers of 2020 and 2021. Blue Discovery allows visitors to get information on the rules to access and visit the marine protected area, on the itineraries to follow, and on the spots of interest in the area surrounding the MPA. The app relies on GNSS technology embedded in smartphones and allows the authorities responsible for managing the MPA to have reliable information and increased position accuracy on the visitors of the areas through the Operational Portal.

A crowdsourcing function of the app allows visitors to send to the area’s managing authority short reports on the sighting of protected species or on environmental crimes. Visitors can upload on the app geo-referenced photos of what they see with the time on which they took them, together with additional details to help the local authorities to intervene in real-time. Furthermore, Blue Discovery provides visitors with the opportunity to request, pay, and issue permits for activities to be carried out in the MPA directly on the app.  All the data collected by the visitors are immediately visualised by the authority on the web portal, which becomes a database of events happening in the protected area that can be monitored by the authorities and used for reporting.

The results

The app allowed the authorities of the marine protected area of Porto Cesareo to monitor the flow of visitors and to keep track of their position in the area. The Blue Discovery app helped the authority of Porto Cesareo to optimise the time and resources deployed to patrol the area, and to validate the fares paid by the visitors and their permits.

Blue Discovery is constantly under development to better support the authorities in charge of managing marine natural areas. Today, Blue Thread is planning to include Earth observation imagery in the app, with the aim to provide additional support for navigation routes, thanks to the implementation of ad hoc ship detection maps. Lastly, Blue Thread is planning to include in the app the Galileo Commercial Authentication Service (CAS), that will provide authenticated, certified positioning, to avoid privacy and legal issues between the visitors and the MPA’s authorities.

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Flanders Classics

Flanders Classics is an official cooperation among the organisers of the traditional cycle races held in Flanders, among which the Tour of Flanders. Since its founding in 1913, the Tour of Flanders has remained a preeminent cycling race taking place every spring in the Belgian region of Flanders. This annual sporting event has gone on without missing a beat, holding the longest uninterrupted streak of any cycling classic. As one of the five “Monuments” of cycling (considered as the most prestigious and toughest one-day races), the Tour of Flanders is notorious for its cobblestone hills. Every year, cyclists from around the world look forward to tackle the treacherous terrain, which demands a high level of agility and endurance.

The challenge

The 2020 season has been a disrupted one for professional cyclists. The Cobbled Classics held in March and April are among the traditional opening races of the season. However, COVID-19 put a spoke in the wheels postponing or even cancelling most races. The Tour of Flanders was no exception being eventually rescheduled to October.

Fortunately, Flanders Classics have been working on a new project to offer amateurs a virtual edition of its famous cycling race since autumn 2019. But with the lockdown in March 2020 happening just a few weeks before the Tour of Flanders, the organisation had to pick up the pace. In an attempt to keep the event alive, Flanders Classics was looking for an innovative approach to create a virtual alternative of the race.

The satellite solution

In April 2020, Flanders Classics launched a special “Lockdown Edition” for a select peloton of professional riders. The Digital Tour of Flanders was developed in collaboration with Bkool, a Spanish indoor training company. It featured replicated real-world courses based on satellite navigation data. Virtual routes can be built with data coming from a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) enabled cycling computer. Someone rides the circuit in the real world, and the resulting data file contains all the information (distance, elevation, coordinates, etc.) needed to create the track in a virtual world. The sense of riding real-world roads and hill climbs can then be simulated with a smart trainer which constantly changes resistance according to the satellite navigation data of the terrain. While riders do not experience the cobbles, they have to push hard on their smart trainers to overcome the virtual hilly landscape and extreme gradients.

With different 3D camera angles (helicopter, motor, front, etc.), recorded real-life images of the hills, and live performance data of the riders on screen, the first edition was already impressive. However, there was not enough time to fully customise the virtual scenery, which featured a standard Mediterranean landscape of the Spanish-based Bkool app. In their pursuit for an even more realistic environment, Flanders Classics pushed for a permanent virtual cycling platform. This resulted in the Proximus Cycling eSeries, which was developed together with RGT Cycling. In order to produce realistic representations of the road and the surroundings, the virtual RGT environment goes the extra mile with street level imagery. Additionally, satellite imagery can also provide useful information to the developers about the environment, to make the 3D-generated natural and human landscape (vegetation, landmarks, housing density, etc.) more realistic. As covered in our highlight about innovative applications of satellite data in cycling, tracking the progress of riders on the real-world circuit is another great tool that comes with the use of satellite mapping services.

The results

For the first time, Flanders Classics was able to create a virtual version of the Tour of Flanders, “De Ronde 2020: The Lockdown Edition”. Streamed live on YouTube and broadcast through the country’s national television with live commentaries, thirteen world-class cyclists from eight professional teams raced against each other on their smart trainers at home over the last 32 km of the official Tour of Flanders course. This gave teams the opportunity to display their sponsors, while the organisation was also able to integrate in-game sponsorship exposure with custom avatars for team jerseys and partnership visibility on road animations, side fences and beach flags. #DeRonde2020 went viral reaching more than 50 million cycling fans worldwide.

This pioneering experience gave rise to the development of the Proximus Cycling eSeries, a free and realistic cycling environment where cyclists can take on challenges all year round. Through the virtual cycling concept, fans worldwide get the chance to get to know the roads where Flandriens provide a spectacle every year.

“The Proximus Cycling eSeries is an ambitious virtual cycling project with partners RGT Cycling, META and Proximus. We offer plenty of challenges with great prizes in the most realistic environment on the market. This allows us to collect data, to target a younger audience and to offer the typical Flemish courses to the whole world all year long. Happy to confirm our position at the front of the innovation peloton, even when it’s virtual.” – Tomas Van Den Spiegel, CEO Flanders Classics

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Hans Hack is a sata visualiser, mapmaker and artist with a background in Heritage Conservation. Hans works with JavaScript, open data sources and whatever might come handy to tell stories. Based in Berlin, he works for museums, foundations, newspapers, NGOs, graphic design studios, and artists.

The satellite solution

Maps are quite a powerful tool to communicate on research findings to the general public. Satellite Imagery can serve as a basis for data visualisation, challenge our perspectives and stimulate reflection on our world. Hans Hack uses aerial or satellite images as a first layer for many of his artistic or graphic projects. As an example, in the Alpen project, he took satellite images of cities that are mainly flat, like Berlin, London, Hamburg, and Brussels, and then modified them to exaggerate their heights. In these 3D city maps, all elevation data has been hugely increased in scale to give users the perception of how their cities would look like on hills or mountains.

An exaggerated view of London heights

The initiative “Reprojected Destruction”

“Reprojected Destruction” is a data visualisation project realised by Hans that relies on satellite imagery to sensitise the public to the damages suffered by the city of Alepo. For this project, the artist found inspiration in a satellite-based map published by the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). The satellite-based map of Aleppo was created between November 2010 and September 2016. The images in the map showed the percentage of buildings damaged in the area since the beginning of the Syrian war. In six years, more than 40%, a total of 33.521 structures, have been damaged as an outcome of the war. As a geographical reference point, Hans superposed the Citadel of Aleppo on that of the Museum Island in Berlin and the Tower of London. He then showcased the re-projected percentage of destruction on some randomly selected buildings.
In Hans’ London map, the Tower of London, the City Hall, the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, the Olympic Stadium, King’s Cross station, and Tate Modern were razed, while Camden, Islington, Dalston and Hampstead were decimated.

The Reprojected Destruction Map of Aleppo in London 

Future developments

In the future Hans Hack plans to continue using satellite imagery for data visualisation projects, while he is also getting interested in the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“What is important to me is to use technology to sensitise people on issues that I believe are relevant to understand today’s world” (Hans Hack)

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The Cambridge Rugby Club

The Cambridge Rugby Union Football Club is an English rugby union club currently competing in the National League 1, the third tier of the English rugby union system.

Engagement with local communities in schools and universities is core to the identity of the club. At the same time, the club has ambitions to progress to the next level of the British rugby league system.

The challenge

The players in the senior team of the club are at a semi-professional level, combining their professional careers alongside their rugby. With three sessions per week and additional strength and conditioning training away from the rugby club, players are very serious about the game.

“Combining players’ professional and sporting careers has been the biggest challenge”, says Richie Williams – Director of Rugby at Cambridge RUFC. “Some players are working nine-to-five behind a desk while others are doing manual labour on building sites. This makes it hard to understand individual fatigue levels.” Several ex-professional players have also relocated to Cambridge, where they can pursue high-level careers in sectors such as the pharmaceuticals, a thriving industry in the region, while playing rugby at a competitive level. As a forward-thinking club, the management has been looking for innovative ways to support the coaches, players and youth academy.

The satellite solution

Satellite tracking devices measuring performance in outdoor team sports have become an emerging trend, reaching beyond the boundaries of elite athlete monitoring. Nowadays, players at different levels are used to wearing a sensor underneath or within their shirt. These satellite navigation wearables allow to quantify the precise workload of players in different metrics (accelerations, covered distance, intensity, etc.).

During the 2018-2019 season, Cambridge RUFC was able to use 30 of such devices on a free trial basis thanks to a sponsorship agreement. Given the success of the tracking systems, the club decided to purchase for the following season 30 wearable devices from Quantrax, a local supplier. The devices track sport performance by relying on different Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), including the European Galileo system.

The generated data can be monitored on tablets in real time. The user-friendly software allows coaches to interpret the numbers, as well as to better manage players’ energy levels and workload. Because it is a cloud-based system, the players can keep track of their training data with an app on their phones.

The result

During the 2018-2019 season, the club had to battle until the very last game to avoid relegation, ending 13^th. The next season, when the tracking system came into play, Cambridge RUFC got eight more wins and reached the 9^th place. Meanwhile, the available data — enabling coaches and players to measure training load — allowed for a decrease in muscle injuries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the system also allows to monitor the conditioning work of players remotely.

Since some of the devices are also made available to players in the youth teams (age 16-18), the use of the technology resulted in a real benefit for the whole club and not just for the senior team. “This gives our youth team’s players a better understanding of their body, of the distance they cover, and of how they can better manage their training load. A big advantage is that the academy players based at Cambridge are able to transfer the use of the data in a classroom environment for their math and science projects. Since a lot of our younger players hope to be professionals one day, it also prepares them for what things are like on a professional level.”

The satellite tracking technology is very much in line with the club’s aspirations: playing at the next level, while preserving its strong community and player-centred philosophy. “We have an open and honest relationship with our players, and we give them responsibility on how the coaching sessions look like. One of the joys of having the satellite tracking system is that players are now able to access the information immediately.” At the same time, coaches are aware of the importance of keeping a healthy balance between coaching and the use of data. “The data supports what we are doing, but we are not slaves to the figures produced during a training session or on a match day. It is merely a tool to support our coaching.”

Younger generations crave for data accessible at their fingertips. In that sense, the app seems to be catered especially for the new generation of rugby players. However, also the older players are seeing the benefits and a number of other rugby clubs at semi-professional level are going to invest in satellite tracking devices in the future because they are also seeing the benefits.

Together with Quantrax, Cambridge RUFC aims to shape the tracking system to develop more rugby specific metrics. The management is convinced that the data will help the club to progress and eventually to achieve its target of playing professional rugby.

“A number of other clubs at our level are going to invest in these tracking devices because they have seen us as a case study, and through conversations with other coaches I spoke about the benefits of this both from a playing and training perspective.” – Richie Williams, Director of Rugby at Cambridge RUFC

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The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is more than a sport governing institution. With a geographically based pyramidal structure from club to county, the organisation acts as a social glue throughout urban and rural communities. Often referenced in its ancient myths and legends, the Gaelic Games are indigenous to Ireland. The GAA is an overarching body for these games, with Gaelic football and hurling as the most popular ones. While Gaelic football can be described as a mix of football and rugby, hurling is something between rugby and hockey. Both ball games are played with two teams of 15 players on a pitch that is approximately 40% larger than a football field. The objective is to outscore your opponents over two periods of 35 minutes by striking the ball between two posts, under the crossbar for 3 points and over the bar for 1 point.

Known as the premier county where the GAA was founded in 1884, Tipperary is a place in the South of Ireland with a rich history. The county booked most of its success in hurling, having won the All-Ireland finals three times since 2010. It is landlocked by a number of rivalrous counties such as Kilkenny and Cork, together known as “the big three” of hurling. Dr Damien Young is Performance Analyst for the Tipperary Hurlers. After a successful career of playing for his home club and the county team, Young completed his PhD at Université de Franche-Comté focusing on the match-play demands of hurling.

The challenge

The GAA has always adopted a nearly professional work and training demand whilst maintaining its amateur status. “Players train five or six times per week and they have to work in between which is a real difficulty for them. From businessmen to teachers, these are very busy players so we have to maximise our time when we get them together.”

For a long time, there was a serious lack of knowledge about the match-play demands of hurling. A loose training plan does not sufficiently prepare players for the game, resulting in poor performances and an increase in injuries. Especially with Covid-19 restrictions during the 2020 season, putting the championship on hold and postponing the All-Ireland Finals to just before Christmas, coaches had to be extra careful to avoid spiking the training load after a disrupted period.

The satellite solution

Numerous GNSS-enabled wearable devices incorporating motion and heart rate sensors are available on the athlete monitoring market. However, only a couple of companies also target the GAA. Most clubs and counties rely on STATSports or Catapult Sports, offering satellite tracking devices and performance analysing software with the ability to monitor player and team demands specific to Gaelic football and hurling. Coaches enjoy the user-friendly software to interpret the tracking data, while players are comfortable wearing the lightweight devices in a compression vest.

As part of his research to study the demands of the game, Young introduced the technology in the GAA world. “I wanted to get more reliable data, so in 2010 we were using satellite tracking which was unheard of in hurling. Only some professional football and rugby teams were using it at that time. It was really futuristic for such a traditional game.”

The results

The tracking data allows coaches to optimise training content, increasing the performance of their players. In the 2020 season, the majority of GAA teams are wearing athlete monitoring devices.

Over the years Young has been finding out more and more about the game thanks to satellite tacking data. For the Tipperary Hurlers, he now plugs that knowledge back into training.

“What is very helpful is a breakdown of the intensity of the volume of work that players are undertaking. We receive live feedback on an iPad about different metrics such as high speeds, sprint distance and peak speeds. Observing the load from session to session and keeping the training within certain limits is so valuable. It is very hard to appraise the actual results, but we have noticed a decrease in our injury rates over the last couple of years.” – Dr Damien Young, Performance Analyst at Tipperary Hurlers

Satellite tracking can be a real tool driving competition, performance and overall development of players, coaches, and fans alike. In a lot of communities in Ireland life revolves around the GAA club, and players representing the place in which they were born is what defines its unique identity. The fact that this technology has set foot even in amateur teams, indicates the boom in satellite tracking.

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Stichtsche Cricket & Hockey Club (SCHC) is a Dutch sports club based in Utrecht. The club exists since 1906 and is best known for its field hockey department. While their men’s hockey team currently plays in the second division, the women’s team has played at the highest level since 2004 and is one of the top teams in the Netherlands.

Lucas Judge is a former field hockey international. In 2018-2020 he was the assistant coach for the Netherlands’ national women’s hockey team, the reigning world champion, and he is currently head coach of the SCHC women’s team.

The challenge

During the 2020-2021 season, the club is competing for a spot in the playoffs with the four best teams of the national league. Six players within the team are also preparing to play in the national team in the Olympics. For the club, maintaining fitness levels during the season and avoiding injuries is essential to performance. Lucas and his staff were looking for reliable ways to improve performance monitoring of their athletes that would not be perceived as stressful or invasive.

The satellite solution

Lucas is a strong supporter of performance tracking technologies. He witnessed the very early stages of GPS technology around 20 years ago, when Catapult Sports was starting up in Australia and had the opportunity of testing tracking devices during his playing days.

In 2018 the club decided to start using the JOHAN Sports tracking system. Ever since, players have been wearing a compression vest featuring a sensor between their shoulder blades. The trackers geolocate the movements of the players on the pitch with satellite navigation and provide in-depth data on a wide range of parameters including velocity, deceleration, acceleration, positioning, covered distance, and player load.

An analysis platform allows data to be stored, processed and analysed online. The coach can then see a list of statistics of all the players on a tablet, smartphone, laptop, or any other kind of digital interface. The software offers additional analytical tools to make training reports, providing quick feedback and a better overview.

The results

Better knowledge of individual player performance allows sports scientists and coaches to make informed decisions about training content and enables more accurate and tailored programme planning, for instance extra rest when a player is at risk of injury due to fatigue. The data can also be used to trigger the curiosity of players, as they are now able to verify how intensely they have trained.

While the data should not be sacred, it is a valuable source of information and when interpreted in the right way it contributes to a better training plan resulting in a fitter team. “It is hard to identify a causal relationship between the use of the trackers and a decrease in injuries, but I am convinced that it makes a positive contribution to our overall training programme as it allows us to make better informed decisions. Being able to monitor players remotely is also an asset, especially given the COVID-19 situation. Players can take a sensor with them and wear it during a workout at home.”

The trackers have become an integral part of the game for today’s top clubs. JOHAN Sports strives to make their system affordable for sports teams on all levels. At SCHC both the men’s and women’s first teams make use of the trackers and a limited number of trackers are made available to the coordinators of the youth teams.

“Personally, I consider the technology a must at the highest level and in recent years I have really seen the usage of satellite tracking technology become mainstream within most professional clubs.”

Lucas Judge, head coach of the SCHC women’s team.

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Iraqi cultural heritage sites have suffered greatly from military activities, organised looting, illegal excavations and trafficking of cultural objects across the Country.

The entire world witnessed with astonishment the destruction of irreplaceable cultural treasures and the United Nations General Assembly adopted two resolutions on Saving the Cultural Heritage of Iraq in 2015.

In the same year, the discovery on ISIL’s Syrian compound of 700 ancient artefacts raised some doubts on the authenticity of the destructions claimed by ISIL. Some doubted that the monuments and artefacts destroyed were copies and not the originals, which were instead traded on the illegal market to fund the activities of ISIL.

The European Union Satellite Centre

The European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen) is an official Agency of the European Union, providing geo-intelligence products and services resulting from the exploitation of space assets and collateral data to support the decision making and actions of the EU in the field of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

The satellite solution

In February 2018, the SatCen received a request from the EU Counter-Terrorism Office & PRISM (Prevention of Conflict, Rule of Law, Integrated Approach, Stabilisation and Mediation) to verify and assess the damage to cultural heritage in some of the urban areas controlled by ISIL in Iraq.

The resulting information was aimed to fight looting of Iraqi cultural heritage, to support the EU Advisory Mission on the Security Sector Reform in Iraq, and help archaeologists continue their work in these areas. These included the Balkuwara Palace area of Samarra, the ruins of the ancient city of Nimroud, the elevated mound of Tepe Gawra, the remains of the ancient city of Ninive, the Mosque of Nabis Yunes, and the remains of the ancient city of Dur Sharrukin (today Khorsabad).

The Centre analysed 117 satellite images of these sites in Iraq, in search of any damage or evidence of looting.

By comparing satellite images taken before, during and after the occupation, SatCen was able to verify and analyse the destruction of several antique buildings and classify the identified damage in three categories: possible looting (illegal excavation and plundering of an archaeological site for gaining profit, i.e. selling), fundamentalist damage (linked with the presence of ISIL in the area), and military damage (such as defence positions, revetments or trenches within archaeological sites).

The results

The use of satellite imagery has helped to verify, detect and classify in detail the damages sustained over time. A wide range of stakeholders, from local authorities to archaeologists, have been invited to use the data and complement it with their own, in order to fight illegal looting and help the reconstruction and preservation processes within the damaged areas.

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Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the public body responsible to investigate, care for and promote Scotland’s historic environment.

Over 300 properties are in their direct care, including Edinburgh Castle, the Neolithic settlement at Skara Brae, and Fort George, which together attract more than 5M visitors per year.

The challenge

One fifth of Scotland’s coastline is at risk of erosion and climate change has accelerated the process. Since the 1970s, the erosion rate has doubled and the proportion of retreating coast increased by 39%, threatening a significant number of prehistoric and historic sites on the Scottish coastline.

The satellite sollution

In 2012, HES, the Heritage Lottery Fund and The University of St. Andrews granted an aid to SCAPE (Scotland’s Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion) to launch the Scotland’s Coastal Heritage at Risk Project (SCHARP).

Within SCHARP, over 1000 volunteers were mobilised to collect information about the condition of sites on the coast. Relying on the satellite navigation system built into their mobile devices and a mobile app, the volunteers updated existing data on 35% of Scotland’s coastline.

A “sites at risk” map, hosted on the SCHARP website, provides access to all data collected. This information is added to the National Record of the Historic Environment in Scotland (Canmore) and provided HES, local authorities and archaeologists with a tool for improved management of the vulnerable heritage on the coast.

In 2015, HES and SCAPE joined Dynamic Coast, a pan-government initiative funded by the Scottish Government and supported by Scottish National Heritage, aimed at building an evidence base of coastal change across all of Scotland’s erodible shores.

First, Dynamic Coast developed a geographic information system (GIS) map of coastal changes since the 19^th century, primarily through analysis of existing maps and remote sensing imagery. In its second phase, the project aims to measure and model the full extent of the intertidal zone (the area where the land meets the sea) to understand which stretches of coast and historic assets are most at risk.

The project team is analysing the Sentinel-2 satellite’s full back catalogue of optical data. This is then compared with historical maps, modern and legacy aerial imagery and surveys of the vegetation edge to map, measure and model coastal changes.

The results

“The advantage of using satellite data is the level of semi-automation that is possible, meaning that a very high quality assessment can be made with a tiny fraction of the resources that would have been needed in the past”, says Mairi Davies, Climate Change Manager at HES.

The web-maps, summaries and reports are available on the web portal of the project and are used by HES to monitor the heritage sites and buildings under their care and to plan and prioritise interventions.

In 2019, to further explore the potential of satellite applications, HES launched a project in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Moniteye to trial the use of GNSS and of data from the Sentinel-1 satellite to monitor some of the cultural heritage sites in their care.

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