Mitigating the impacts of environmental change on cultural heritage using drone-based survey techniques

随着气候变化的影响越来越大，沿海地区的考古遗址越来越受到海岸或河流侵蚀、永久冻土融化或海平面上升的威胁（Masselink和Russell，2013年）。部分由于缺乏资源和一些地点地处偏远，许多遗址尽管容易遭到破坏，但却没有得到研究，缺乏适当的环境管理战略，往往导致人类历史知识的重大损失。例如，最近的SCHARP项目（www.scharp.co.uk）调查了苏格兰海岸约35%的地区，评估了12000个记录在案的古迹（另见Rennie et al 2017）。结果表明，这些遗址中有4000个需要某种形式的考古干预，即使是被标记为优先的约100个遗址，也远远超过了任何国家或商业机构的物质和经济能力。在许多情况下，除非主要基础设施受到威胁，否则国家对海岸管理采取最低限度的方法，允许海岸线随着时间的推移自然演变，这主要是由于工程解决方案的费用以及它们可能产生的不利生态影响。然而，与某些可以自然迁移或通过工程干预迁移的环境或生态系统不同，考古遗迹无法在其他地方重建--它们是一种不断减少的资源。许多受威胁的沿海地点没有受到详细的记录，无论是传统的地面方法还是现代技术，如机载激光雷达。这两种方法都可能是昂贵和耗时的，并且需要熟练的个人来承担和/或处理所收集的数据。最近无人机技术的应用正在迅速改变许多领域，包括考古学。特别是无人机衍生摄影测量已成为记录文化遗产的重要且具有成本效益的技术（例如O 'Drivel 2018）。然而，它在更广泛的景观研究中的有效性尚未完全实现，尽管该技术允许用户进行大规模的地形调查，并以LiDAR成本的一小部分创建密集的三维模型，并且具有更高的空间分辨率。高分辨率的地形测量可以大大有助于记录现存的考古遗址以及识别以前看不见的地表特征。虽然这种技术在遗产管理能力方面有明显的应用，但其他基于无人机的新技术可以增加更多的价值。热成像、多光谱成像和超光谱成像探测地下考古学的潜力是众所周知的。直到最近，这些技术还局限于低分辨率的卫星和轻型飞机勘测，这些勘测费用昂贵，而且往往在不利于考古的条件下进行。然而，随着现代无人驾驶飞机的出现和硬件的重大发展，这些技术已变得更适用于考古学家，尽管很少有公开的使用实例，在这方面，该项目将评估开发无人驾驶飞机技术和其他相对低成本的遥感技术的能力，以迅速记录和发现受到海岸侵蚀威胁的考古遗址。候选人将接受各种跨学科和新的调查方法的使用和适用性的培训，该项目的结果有可能被纳入政策制定和遗产管理，同时也被用作政府机构的资源分配工具。

With the increasing effects of climate change, archaeological sites in coastal regions are increasingly under threat by coastal or fluvial erosion, melting permafrost or rising sea levels (Masselink and Russell 2013). Due in part to a lack of resources and remoteness of some locations, many sites are unstudied and lack adequate environmental management strategies despite being vulnerable to destruction, often resulting in a significant loss of knowledge of human history. The recent SCHARP project (www.scharp.co.uk), for example, surveyed approximately 35% of the Scottish Coast, assessing 12000 recorded monuments (See also Rennie et al 2017). The results indicated that 4000 of these sites needed some form of archaeological intervention, with even the c.100 sites marked as a priority proving a number far exceeding the physical and economic capacity of any state or commercial body. In many instances, unless major infrastructure is threatened, the state takes a minimal approach to coastal management, allowing the coastline to evolve naturally over time, primarily due to the expense of engineering solutions and the adverse ecological effects they can have. However, unlike certain environments or ecosystems that can migrate naturally or by engineered intervention, archaeological monuments cannot be re-created elsewhere - they are a diminishing resource. Many threatened coastal sites have not been subject to detailed recording, either by conventional ground-based methods or modern techniques such as airborne LiDAR. Both methods can be costly and time consuming, and require skilled individuals to undertake and/or process the collected data. The recent application of drone technology is quickly revolutionising many sectors, including archaeology. Drone derived photogrammetry, in particular, has become an important and cost effective technique for recording cultural heritage (e.g. O'Driscoll 2018). Its effectiveness in wider landscape studies, however, has not yet been fully realised, despite the technique allowing users to undertake large-scale topographical survey and create dense three-dimensional models at a fraction of the cost of LiDAR, and at a much higher spatial resolution. High-resolution topographical surveys can contribute greatly to the recording of extant archaeological sites as well as the identification of previously unseen surface features. While there are clear applications for such technology in a heritage management capacity, other novel drone-based techniques can add further value. The potential for thermal, multi- and hyper-spectral imaging to detect subsurface archaeology is well known. Until recently these techniques were confined to low-resolution satellite and light-aircraft derived surveys which are costly and are often undertaken in conditions unfavourable for archaeology. However, with the advent of modern drones and a significant evolution in hardware, these techniques have become more applicable to archaeologists, though there are little published examples of their use.In this regard, the project will assess the ability of developing drone technology and other relatively low-cost remote sensing techniques to rapidly record and discover archaeological sites threatened by coastal erosion. The candidate will be trained in the use and applicability of a variety of interdisciplinary and novel methods of survey, with the results of the project having the potential to feed into policy making and heritage management, while also being used as a resource allocation tool for government agencies.