Potential of airborne LiDAR data in detecting cultural landscape features in Slovakia

Abstract

High-resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) scanners provide detailed information on terrain surfaces, thus enabling the detection of the topographic signatures of historical anthropogenic landforms overgrown by trees or covered by the soil surface. This study aimed to examine the potential of incoming nationwide LiDAR data for detecting the cultural landscape features in Slovakia. We derived a detailed digital elevation model from LiDAR points and adopted upgraded visualisation techniques based on the combination of local relief models, sky view factor, slope steepness, and colour blending. We visually identified examples of different anthropogenic landforms and confirmed our findings with existing literature. In addition, we provide examples of previously unknown historical anthropogenic landforms discovered from LiDAR images. Finally, we discuss the potential and limits of LiDAR data in exploring and protecting different groups of historic anthropogenic landforms as remnants of past cultural landscapes in Slovakia.

Keywords:

• LiDAR
• landscape palimpsest
• visualisations
• cultural landscapes
• landscape archaeology
• anthropogenic landforms

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for critically reading the manuscript and suggesting substantial improvements.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Slovak Scientific VEGA agency under Grant No. 2/0018/19 “Ecological Analyses of Landscape Acculturation in Slovakia since Early Prehistory until Today”, Grant No. 1/0100/19 “Knowledge of the Bronze Age Economy and Society in the Area north of the Middle Danube by the Archaeological and Environmental Sources”, Grant No. 1/0468/20 “Development of innovative approaches to cartographic visualisation of the data obtained by aerial laser scanning “and UGA agency under Grant No. VIII/9/2021 “Research of human impact on the landscape and its historical development using an interdisciplinary approach”. This publication is the result of the project implementation: “Scientific support of climate change adaptation in agriculture and mitigation of soil degradation” (ITMS2014 + 313011W580) supported by the Integrated Infrastructure Operational Programme funded by the ERDF (20%).

Notes on contributors

Juraj Lieskovský

Juraj Lieskovský, PhD. is a senior research scientist at the Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (ILE SAS). He is an expert in GIS analysis, synthesis and visualisation, database design and analyses. His research focuses on modelling and analysing soil erosion and landscape changes and their driving forces. He has participated in several international projects, including EUFP projects (OpenNESS, HERCULES, EBONE, Alter-Net) and NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change programme projects. Juraj Lieskovský also works as a GIS expert in the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity. He finished his Ph.D. thesis at the Institute of Landscape Ecology SAS in 2010 and then held a post-doctoral fellowship at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL from 2013 to 2016.

T. Lieskovský

Tibor Lieskovský, PhD. is a lecturer and researcher at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. He is currently working on spatial modelling and data integration in the field of cultural heritage, and most recently he specialises in digital elevation models and their visualisation for specific purposes. This especially includes the protection of cultural and historical heritage. Tibor Lieskovský has participated in research projects in Guatemala, Iraq, Sudan, Egypt and Syria in the fields of GIS, photogrammetry and land surveying. He is a member of the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative which is a consortium of research institutions using the LiDAR data in archaeology. Finally, Tibor completed his Ph.D. thesis on archaeological predictive modelling at STU Bratislava in 2011.

K. Hladíková

Katarína Hladíková, PhD. works as an assistant professor at the Department of Archaeology at the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2013. She teaches the courses Computer Application in Archaeology, GIS in Archaeology, and courses related to protohistory. Her research focus is targeted on the social archaeology of later European prehistory and protohistory, and landscape archaeology. She participated on several national research projects. She received a six-month Post-Doctoral Scholarship at the University of Vienna at the Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology in 2020.

D. Štefunková

Dagmar Štefunková, PhD. is a senior researcher at the Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (ILE SAS). Her research focuses on cultural landscapes and their development trajectories. She is a member of the EUCALAND international expert network where she is co-author of several studies devoted to different types of European agrarian landscapes and their bio-cultural values. Dagmar Štefunková completed her Ph.D. thesis in 2004 in ILE SAS, and has since participated in several national and international projects. Amongst others, they include the Landscape Atlas of Slovak Republic, Research and maintenance of biodiversity in historical structures of the agricultural landscape of Slovakia, Rural Etinet and ALTER-Net.

N. Hurajtová

Natália Hurajtová is a doctoral student at the Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (ILE SAS). The topic of her Ph.D. thesis is ‘The Impact of Human Activities on the Landscape Structure in Historical Perspective’. Her research focuses on the reconstruction of past human activities, and this is based on analysing macro-remains, old maps and archival documents and preserved historical structures captured by aerial laser scanning. Finally, Natália Hurajtová is a member of The Slovak Archaeological Society (SAS).