Following the outcomes of the AER Spring plenaries in London where members highlighted their interest on cultural heritage both in terms of exchange of good practices and project development, AER attended a workshop in Brussels focused on Copernicus in support of cultural heritage, in particular for what concern preservation.
Therefore, AER had the possibility to get deeper insight into the Copernicus Programme and wish now to share it with member regions and partners. The Programme supports technological tools and services to tackle societal and territorial challenges in diverse fields, among which cultural heritage.
Why do we care?
Cultural heritages are under threats of material degradation and/or change of cultural landscape. 76% of World Heritage Sites are affected at least by one geo-hazard. There has been already a link between remote sensing and cultural heritage, however, it has many limitations beside its potentials and it is still a peer area in Europe. Developing technological tools and services are needed for regular protection, monitoring, documenting and sharing information about our heritages, for example, these technologies are useful for cultural heritage maintenance to reduce disaster risks.
Copernicus is useful for policy makers, researchers, commercial to private users at all scales to enable understanding of the Earth by providing different services such as emergency management and land monitoring. Copernicus is coordinated by the European Commission in partnership with EU Member States. According to EYE@RIS3 Online Database, 49 regions highlights the importance of culture and creative industries as regional priority to stimulate knowledge-driven growth. Regions are important users, however, they have difficulties with compliancy and implementation of EU directives and policies concerning natural and built environment. On the other hand, regions are also “producers” as main authorities for spatial data infrastructures and services of environmental agencies.
If you are interested in cultural heritage preservation, you can find all the materials about the contents of the event on the Workshop website. On that occasion, an interesting presentation was provided by our partner network NEREUS -the Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies – which stressed the benefits of space technologies for end-users such as public authorities and tourism players.
