Development of an efficient approach of archaeological heritage in the intertidal zone of the belgian North Sea

• Michiel Decock ^[1] ; Cornelis Stal ^[1] ; Samuel Van Ackere ^[1] ; Annelies Vandenbulcke ^[1] ; Philippe De Maeyer ^[1] ; Alain De Wulf ^[1]
  1. [1] Ghent University

     Ghent University

     Arrondissement Gent, Bélgica

     
• Localización: ARQUEOLÓGICA 2.0 - 8th International Congress on Archaeology, Computer Graphics: Cultural heritage and innovation / José Luis Lerma García (aut.), 2016, ISBN 978-84-9048-455-5, págs. 138-145
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • The knowledge of the submerged cultural heritage in the North Sea is rather limited. The Belgian North Sea is beingused for a lot of different purposes, such as fishing, aggregate extraction, wind farms, dredging, etc. Due to theseincreasing economic activities, the underwater archive is in danger. In the context of the UNESCO Convention on theProtection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage of 2001, gathering more information about the submerged culturalheritage in the intertidal zones of the North Sea is one of the main objectives of the Belgian scientific project ‘SeArch’. Itwill give a clearer picture of the broader cultural and archaeological heritage in the region and it can be used as a basisfor a sustainable management by government agencies. The Department of Geography (Ghent University, Belgium)contributes to the SeArch project in two ways. First, an innovative survey methodology has been developed which allowsan accurate and cost-efficient evaluation of the archaeological potential in the intertidal zones of the Belgian beaches.Secondly, the Department of Geography is developing an interactive webGIS platform, which makes it possible to share,integrate and visualize the gathered archaeological and environmental data and information in a user-friendly way.Hereby, the total potential of this project is fully exploited in a time-efficient manner. To create an interactive webGISplatform, a good structured spatial database is needed. It enables manipulation of a wide variety of georeferencedinformation in both raster and vector formats. This paper provides more information about the configuration andapplication of the spatial database. Moreover, it focusses on the development of a fully functional Spatial DataInfrastructure (SDI) using the most reliable, powerful and state-of-the-art technological components. Besides, a new wayof collecting geomatic data in a fast and accurate manner will be discussed. Some processing results will show thepossibilities for detecting and visualizing underground structures and archaeological objects.