Combination of Landsat 8 and Sentinel 1 data for the characterization of a site of interest. A Case Study: the Royal Palace of Caserta

In this paper a very recent application of remote sensing techniques to the investigation of archeological sites is discussed. In the last two decades noninvasive techniques have been preferred to old and less modern operations like excavations and corings that have appeared to be risky, expensive, too invasive and very time-consuming. At this end, objective of this paper is to present new added-value tools by the integration of different satellite platforms: data from NASA Landsat-8 and ESA Sentinel-1 have been used and combined. Since the two systems are very different, their data combination provides useful and interesting results. Data from optical/multispectral sensors and data from SAR are processed and integrated to monitor and identify not only the cultural heritage monuments but also the surrounding vegetation, and the green areas and parks inside. Satellite images can put in evidence boundaries modifications, vegetation state, their degradation, and other phenomena, such as changes in the territories due both to natural and to anthropogenic causes. The Royal Palace of Caserta has been chosen as case study: the site in fact by presenting besides the central building a huge extension of parks and fountains has appeared to be suitable to our aims.