World Heritage properties are essential for national and community pride and social cohesion. Under the World Heritage Convention, the States Parties sign up to preserve World Heritage properties for future generations. Therefore, managers of these properties are responsible for protecting their outstanding universal value. Unfortunately, with the development of the society and tourism industry, the excessive land subsidence and structural deformation caused by natural and or human forces (e.g., sediment consolidation, groundwater extraction, uncontrolled urbanization, unchecked tourist development, and underground construction) pose problems to World Heritage sites. The heritage values of the World Heritage property and, where relevant, its ecosystems may get weakened.

Remote sensing has been used to help protect the World Heritage sites. InSAR remote sensing has distinct advantages over conventional engineering methods, namely, (i) large-scale monitoring capacity; (ii) high spatial density of points; and (iii) cost-effectiveness with no need for any instruments on the ground. The team aims to develop cutting-edge interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) remote sensing technologies with deep learning analysis to monitor large-scale ground subsidence and structural deformation in world heritage sites for structural health diagnosis and risk assessment. Three heritages in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) will be taken as study areas: Kaiping Diaolou and Villages, China Danxia, and the Historic Centre of Macau.

The new generation of InSAR remote sensing techniques will be developed for monitoring the deformation of heritage sites with a high spatial density of points and millimeter accuracy. The innovative method can become valuable tools in understanding emerging threats to world heritage sites. The results of the project can act as an essential reference for managing the potential risks of the world heritages.

Villagers  in World Heritage

Workers  in HIST

Public

2022

Cultural Tech, Culture & Heritage