Remote Sensing-Based Dynamic Monitoring of Immovable Cultural Relics, from Environmental Factors to the Protected Cultural Site: A Case Study of the Shunji Bridge

Abstract

This paper explores the ability of remote sensing techniques to monitor immovable cultural relics on multiple scales. The Shunji Bridge, a destroyed cultural relic, located in the Jinjiang River Basin, Fujian Province, China, was studied in terms of the environmental factors at the macroscale and the protected cultural site at the microscale. At the macroscale, moderate spatial resolution images of the Jinjiang River Basin were processed in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform to extract environmental factors, such as land cover and vegetation cover. At the microscale, Google Earth time series images were used to extract attribute information to reflect the spatial and temporal changes in the Shunji Bridge before, during and after its destruction. Quantitative assessment of the Shunji Bridge was performed to assess the degree of the impacts that different factors had on the immovable cultural relic. Spatial analysis methods were applied to trace back to the source of the bridge destruction and to track the situation after the bridge was destroyed. The causes of the destruction of the bridge are revealed at both the macro- and microscales. This study provides technical support for the natural disaster risk assessment of immovable cultural relics. The findings of this research can provide suggestions for the protection of immovable cultural relics.