Spatial risk assessment and the protection of cultural heritage in southern Tajikistan

Open Access article published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, online March 2021

CAAL research by Marco Nebbia, Federica Cilio, Bobomullo Bobomulloev published online in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, March 2021, ‘Spatial risk assessment and the protection of cultural heritage in southern Tajikistan‘. Read the full article HERE and a bit from the Research Aim:

‘The main focus of this paper is on the satellite remote sensing strand of CAAL and in particular on the potential use of remotely sensed data and related computational methods, to develop a better understanding of on-going threats in a specific area of Tajikistan, South Khatlon. Major disturbances endangering and destroying the archaeological landscape of the region are discussed, and a nuanced case–control approach, borrowed from disciplines such as epidemiology and ecology, is proposed in order to understand the regional distribution of risk levels arising from a variety of natural and human threats.

We will demonstrate both how to model the risk across the territory and how to formally explore the locational settings of archaeological features already affected by natural and human disturbances. In doing so, we will illustrate how this allows for the empirical identification of cultural heritage areas at higher risk.’


You can also read Federica Cilio’s previously published article Khatlon, Tajikistan: a multi-source remote sensing approach which serves as an introduction to the work.

Leave a Reply