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Climatic & Anthropogenic Hazards to the Nasca World Heritage: Application of Remote Sensing, AI, and Flood Modelling

Masato Sakai, Marcus Freitag, Akihisa Sakurai, Conrad M Albrecht, Hendrik F Hamann

TL;DR

This paper addresses the risk of erosion to Nasca geoglyphs due to climate-driven floods and human infrastructure. It combines remote sensing at multiple resolutions, LiDAR-derived DEMs, AI-assisted geoglyph detection, and hydrological modeling (flow accumulation and 2D unsteady flow with HEC-RAS) to map erosion risk across the Nasca Pampa. The authors identify geoglyphs in danger, notably near the Pan-American Highway, and demonstrate that culvert-based mitigation could reduce damage. Field verification with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture supports the model's risk assessments. The work presents an integrated framework for heritage preservation that can guide conservation planning and risk mitigation.

Abstract

Preservation of the Nasca geoglyphs at the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Peru is urgent as natural and human impact accelerates. More frequent weather extremes such as flashfloods threaten Nasca artifacts. We demonstrate that runoff models based on (sub-)meter scale, LiDAR-derived digital elevation data can highlight AI-detected geoglyphs that are in danger of erosion. We recommend measures of mitigation to protect the famous "lizard", "tree", and "hand" geoglyphs located close by, or even cut by the Pan-American Highway.

Climatic & Anthropogenic Hazards to the Nasca World Heritage: Application of Remote Sensing, AI, and Flood Modelling

TL;DR

This paper addresses the risk of erosion to Nasca geoglyphs due to climate-driven floods and human infrastructure. It combines remote sensing at multiple resolutions, LiDAR-derived DEMs, AI-assisted geoglyph detection, and hydrological modeling (flow accumulation and 2D unsteady flow with HEC-RAS) to map erosion risk across the Nasca Pampa. The authors identify geoglyphs in danger, notably near the Pan-American Highway, and demonstrate that culvert-based mitigation could reduce damage. Field verification with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture supports the model's risk assessments. The work presents an integrated framework for heritage preservation that can guide conservation planning and risk mitigation.

Abstract

Preservation of the Nasca geoglyphs at the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Peru is urgent as natural and human impact accelerates. More frequent weather extremes such as flashfloods threaten Nasca artifacts. We demonstrate that runoff models based on (sub-)meter scale, LiDAR-derived digital elevation data can highlight AI-detected geoglyphs that are in danger of erosion. We recommend measures of mitigation to protect the famous "lizard", "tree", and "hand" geoglyphs located close by, or even cut by the Pan-American Highway.
Paper Structure (5 sections, 3 figures)

This paper contains 5 sections, 3 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. DATA & METHODS
  3. RESULTS & DISCUSSION
  4. Conclusions & Perspectives
  5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Overview of workflow (arrows) to process (boxes) corresponding data (ellipses) in order to protect figurative Nasca geoglyphs where artificial intelligence interacts with remote sensing modalities and domain expert archaeologists.
  • Figure 2: Modelled erosion danger due to flooding. (a-d) Examples of the flooding flow accumulation as a proxy for the danger of erosion. The color-scale indicates potentially "safe" levels of flow accumulation are below 3257, which corresponds to a flow-accumulation area of 100m $\times$ 100m (red). Potentially "unsafe" levels of flow accumulation are shown in blue/ white. (e) Maximum pixel-level danger level for each geoglyph on a log-scale. Eroding geoglyphs with pixels above the "safe" level are shown in orange.
  • Figure 3: 2D unsteady flow simulation using HEC-RAS. (a) Flow velocity in m/s for the entire field of view of the simulation. The LIDAR-derived elevation map is shown in false-color. Location with known geoglyphs are shaded. Inflow boundary condition is 20 cubic meters rain per second applied along a line in the top-right corner. (b) Topography around the Pan-American highway cutting from the top-left corner to the bottom-right. (c) Topography altered to simulate an added water channel (culvert) under the highway. (d) Unmitigated flow intersecting three famous geoglyphs (lizard, tree, and hand). (e) Mitigated flow mostly takes the path through the culvert under the highway.