Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis is the Vice Rector at the Cyprus University of Technology and Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics. He is also the Head of the Remote Sensing and the Geo-Environment Lab. He has authored more than 300 research publications in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, chapters in books and technical reports. His research group is the biggest group at the Cyprus University of Technology consisting 25 active researchers. Since his appointment at the Cyprus University of Technology (2007), he participated in more than 40 research projects with funding sources from the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation, FP6, FP7, Eureka, Life +, MED, Horizon 20020, EC regional funds, national funds and industry. Diofantos has been a coordinator of more than 15 research projects. He is a member of the ‘Advisory Committee’, which deals with national space issues under the umbrella of the Ministry of Communications and Works in Cyprus, for preparing the Cyprus join to European Space Agency as a full member.
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Evaluating ten spectral vegetation indices for the identification of military underground structures
The preservation of CH and landscape comprises a strategic priority not only to guarantee cultural treasures and evidence of the human past to future generations, but also to exploit them as a strategic and valuable economic asset. The objective of this paper is to present knowledge transfer examples achieved from the ATHENA project through intense training activities. These activities were also designed to enhance the scientific profile of the research staff and to accelerate the development of research capabilities of the ERC. At the same time the results from the training activities were also exploited to promote earth observation knowledge and best practices intended for CH. The activities included active and passive remote sensing data used for archaeological applications, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image analysis for change and deformation detection, monitoring of risk factors related to cultural heritage sites including archaeological looting etc.
The preservation of CH and landscape comprises a strategic priority not only to guarantee cultural treasures and evidence of the human past to future generations, but also to exploit them as a strategic and valuable economic asset. The objective of this paper is to present knowledge transfer examples achieved from the ATHENA project through intense training activities. These activities were also designed to enhance the scientific profile of the research staff and to accelerate the development of research capabilities of the ERC. At the same time the results from the training activities were also exploited to promote earth observation knowledge and best practices intended for CH. The activities included active and passive remote sensing data used for archaeological applications, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image analysis for change and deformation detection, monitoring of risk factors related to cultural heritage sites including archaeological looting etc.
This paper presents the results obtained from field spectroradiometric campaigns at ‘buried’ underground structures in Cyprus. A SVC-1024 field spectroradiometer was used and in-band reflectances were determined for a variety of medium and high resolution satellite sensors as well as Landsat. A number of vegetation indices such as NDVI were obtained while a ‘smart index’ was developed aiming for the detection of military underground structures following the assessment of the existing vegetation indices or other available band combinations algorithm. Test areas were identified, analyzed and modeled.
The areas have been analyzed and tested in different scenarios such as: (a) the ‘natural state’ of the underground structure (b) the different type of crop over the underground structure and imported soil (c) the different types of non-natural material over the underground structure. A reference target in the nearby area was selected. Controllable meteorological and environmental parameters were acquired and monitored. As well, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was also used to survey the area with visible and near-infrared cameras in order to generate NDVI values for comparison to the in-situ spectroradiometric measurements
The present work aims to provide detailed information regarding the different existing datasets that can be used to support archaeologists in understanding the transformations that the landscape in Cyprus undergone, from a remote sensing perspective. Such datasets may help archaeologists to visualize a lost landscape and try to retrieve valuable information, while they support researchers for future investigations. As such they can further highlight in a predictive manner and consequently assess the impacts of landscape transformation -being of natural or anthropogenic cause- to cultural heritage.
Three main datasets are presented here: aerial images, satellite datasets including spy satellite datasets acquired during the Cold War, and cadastral maps. The variety of data is provided in a chronological order (e.g. year of acquisitions), while other important parameters such as the cost and the accuracy are also determined. Individual examples of archaeological sites in Cyprus are also provided for each dataset in order to underline both their importance and performance. Also some pre- and post-processing remote sensing methodologies are briefly described in order to enhance the final results. The paper within the framework of ATHENA project, dedicated to remote sensing archaeology/CH, aims to fill a significant gap in the recent literature of remote sensing archaeology of the island and to assist current and future archaeologists in their quest for remote sensing information to support their research.
Though the general feeling is that of changes on climate will consequently affect ETc, the results have indicated that there is no significant effect of climate change on crop evapotranspiration, despite the fact that some climatic factors have changed. Applying Student’s T-test, the mean values for the most water intensive trees in Cyprus of the 1994-2004 decade have shown no statistical difference from the mean values of 2005-2015 decade’s for all the cases, concluding that the climate change taking place the last decades in Cyprus have either not affected the crop evapotranspiration or the crops have manage to adapt into the new environmental conditions through time.
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