Description:
Due to the pandemic, according to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, as of early April last year, 71% of the 1,121 World Heritage sites had been closed, while 18% were only partially open. The unprecedent experience of the pandemic changed, and is still changing, the way we look at, understand and use our Heritage. What future and which technologies can reshape the awareness, preservation and fruition? There is the need to seriously start considering business models for Heritage that is becoming an emerging market for EO thanks also to the integration of multiple data sources (space and non-space) and innovative techniques (LiDAR, drones, local laser scanning, VR, XR, Artificial Intelligence, crowdsourcing etc.). At the same time, available downstream services are still acting independently, making their interoperability and potential synergies still challenging.
To date, Copernicus and Contributing Missions are already providing certain support for the management of Heritage during emergencies (especially in case of geo-hazards), as well as the mapping, monitoring, preservation of cultural heritage as a daily routine. However, this is only the “tip of the iceberg”, there are an additional range of geo-applications that can provide benefit and therefore related geo-business in the area of Heritage. The engagement of multi- and inter-disciplinary communities to fill the gap between experts (remote sensing, Cultural Heritage managers, AI experts, social scientists, civil protection and actors from impact sectors) represents a key factor for strengthening the communication and the collaborations between EO experts and Heritage managers as well as the connection between the data providers and the end-users /site managers.
Education and capacity building about the use of geo-applications to support heritage is an additional emerging area that will be also included in the proposed Agora.
While Digital Twin Earth will without doubt be extremely beneficial for humankind, its implementation is complex due to the tremendous amount od data involved. A “Digital Twin Heritage Site” implies the same technologies, but is however much more affordable due to its smaller size and the possibility to do in-situ verifications. This implies that selected heritage sites could be used to strengthen the know-how about Digital Twin Earth, and at the same time will open a certain market related with the 3D-and 4D modelling, visualization and presentation of selected heritage sites.
Therefore, is Heritage a candidate for the Digital Twin Earth? How Interdisciplinarity can support the generation of processes and practices for the use of technologies for Heritage? This session will focus on how to increase the awareness, the capacity building effectiveness, and the understanding of how innovative technologies can efficiently meet the needs of Heritage authorities, Tourist authorities, Park Rangers, as well as the overall research community.

Speakers:
• Günter Schreier, German Aerospace Center (DLR) German Remote Sensing Data Center Direction
• Dr. Jyoti Hosagrahar, Deputy Director for the World Heritage Center at UNESCO
• Dr. Gerasopoulos Evangelos, Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, Greece; Research Director
• Dr. Sarah Parcak, Professor in the Dept of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
• Prof. Elizabeth Brabec, Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning,
University of Massachusetts Amherst and Secretary General of International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes of ICOMOS/IFLA