Space for new discoveries

A type of archaeology, employing remote sensing and a multidisciplinary approach, is helping researchers unearth significant historical sites, Li Yingxue reports.

Often, when people talk about space technology, they are looking outward toward the stars and to worlds beyond our own. However, those same technical systems can also be used to improve knowledge of our own planet and our civilization. So, how exactly can space information technologies be applied to the research, monitoring and protection of cultural and natural heritage? Wang Xinyuan, deputy director of the International Center on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage under the auspices of UNESCO, answered this question in an online lecture where he shared projects and discoveries last month.

The online class was held by the center on June 13, China's annual Cultural and Natural Heritage Day.

The center was launched in 2011 in Beijing. As the first UNESCO category II center applying space technologies to the monitoring and conservation of the world's natural and cultural heritage sites, it is hosted by Aerospace Information Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Wang introduced how his team discovered ancient sites in Gansu province in 2013 and also led international teams to find 10 archaeological sites in Tunisia in 2018 using space information technology.

He said he hopes the online course will inspire more people to devote themselves to protecting the world's cultural and natural heritage.

"It is not only the duty of professionals, the whole of society should also take responsibility," Wang says. "Us scientists have the duty to specify why, what and how to protect them to the public."

Wang says to study world cultural and natural heritage is a comprehensive subject that requires multiple areas of expertise, from geology and geomorphology to paleontology, as well as knowing how to protect and manage them.