Multi-Sensor Geometric Documentation of Cultural Heritage at Risk Across Inland, Coastal and Shallow-Water Environments
Journal
Sensors
ISSN
1424-8220
Date Issued
September 8, 2026
Author(s)
Tokmakidis, Konstantinos
Papadimitriou, Kimon
Tokmakidis, Panagiotis
Tourtas, Alexandros
Martino, Salvatore
Grechi, Guglielmo
Królewicz, Sławomir
Holzer, Jannis
Bosch, Eleonoor
Nguyen, David
Langenegger, Fabien
Plattner, Stefan
Bilis, Themistoklis
Sokolicek, Alexander
Gschwind, Markus
Lettmann, Doris
Oniszczuk, Agnieszka
Abstract
Climate-related and environmental hazards affect cultural heritage sites in markedly different inland, coastal, lacustrine and underwater settings, creating documentation requirements that cannot be addressed by a single sensing approach. This study presents the multi-sensor geometric documentation of eight cultural heritage sites. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry was applied to six inland and coastal sites, while underwater photogrammetry, unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), acoustic sounding and a prototype green-wavelength flash LiDAR were used at three shallow-water sites. The campaigns produced orthomosaics, elevation models, dense point clouds, textured meshes, bathymetric maps and underwater LiDAR point clouds at scales appropriate to the conservation problem of each site. The resulting products document exposed architectural remains, excavation areas, cliffs and unstable slopes, lake-margin changes, submerged masonry, wooden structures and lakebed morphology. Their main contribution is the establishment of spatially explicit, site-specific baselines that provide measurable geometric and visual evidence for condition assessment, future repeat-survey comparisons and the spatial integration of environmental, archaeological and conservation information. The study demonstrates the operational and information complementarity of optical, acoustic and active ranging approaches, which address different documentation scales, environmental constraints and heritage targets, and provide distinct spatial evidence that can serve as potential inputs to subsequent digital twin and decision support applications.
Affiliation
University in Poznań
Office de l’Archéologie Cantonale de Neuchâtel
German Archaeological Institute (DAI)
Funding
This work was carried out within the project “Toolbox for assessing and mitigating Climate Change risks and natural hazards threatening cultural heritage—TRIQUETRA”, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101094818.
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