On the Use of Big Earth Data in the Copernicus Era for the Investigation and the Preservation of the Human Past

Abstract

Earth Observation (EO) Big data have emerged in the past few years providing opportunities to improve and/or enable research and decision support applications with unprecedented value for digital CH and archaeology. The currently available digital data, tools and services with particular reference to Copernicus initiatives make possible to characterize and understand the state of conservation of CH and opened up a frontier of possibilities for the discovery of archaeological sites from above also using data available free of charge. In this paper an overview of the state of the art in the field of EO Big data for CH is brief summarized.