# Detecting Change at Archaeological Sites in North Africa Using Open-Source Satellite Imagery
## 5 Conclusions
In Egypt, the construction of New Aswan has been ongoing since the start of the twenty-first century. The city is expected to offer social housing for potentially one million residents in the coming years, but it will also have a touristic and commercial ribbon along the Nile. The most important archaeological sites within the city limits are located along the river, and AKAP is actively working to have them included into the touristic circuit of the New Aswan corniche. In much of North Africa heritage has already suffered widespread damage, but there are still many surviving sites which need urgent monitoring and protecting. EAMENA's approach of combining the work of a team of full-time image interpreters with the expertise and efforts of many archaeologists based in the region has allowed an increasing number of sites to be located (over 170,000 and growing). Although this allows sites to be logged, many archaeological sites are rapidly disappearing more quickly than human archaeologists can work to regularly monitor them manually. The change detection workflow described in this paper, therefore, offers a way of addressing this. EAMENA's change detection methodology allows the most at-risk sites to be identified rapidly and targeted for recording and preservation. Because the methodology uses open-source data and tools, it can easily be used by our network of heritage professionals who have been trained in its use and in remote sensing and GIS more generally. We urge other heritage management projects working in the region to also adopt open-source philosophies in the interests of democratising access to these technologies and preserving archaeological sites. The following are available online at [[http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/22/3694/s1](http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/22/3694/s1)]([http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/22/3694/s1](http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/22/3694/s1)), change detection script. Conceptualization, L.R. ; methodology, L.R. ; validation, L.R., M.C.G. and L.A.; formal analysis, L.R. ; investigation, L.R., M.C.G., N.S., L.A., M.A.-H., M.S. ; writing--original draft preparation, all. ; writing--review and editing, all. ; visualization, L.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. The EAMENA research was funded by the Arcadia Fund, building on initial work in al-Jufra by the Trans-SAHARA project, with funding from the European Research Council (grant number 269418). AKAP was funded by the University of Bologna, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, EAMENA/Arcadia Fund. The EAMENA Project is a partnership between the Universities of Oxford, Leicester and Durham under the leadership of [PERSON] (Project Director, Oxford), [PERSON] (Principal Investigator, Oxford), [PERSON] (Co-Investigator, Leicester) and [PERSON] (Co-Investigator, Durham). We are funded by the Arcadia Fund for documentation, database development and fieldwork, as well as the British Council's Cultural Protection Fund to train heritage professionals from eight countries in the EAMENA methodology. EAMENA's research in North Africa is directed by [PERSON] and primarily based at the University of Leicester, we have thus been able to share data and expertise with the Leicester-based ERC-funded Trans-SAHARA and Leverhulme Trust-funded Peopling the Desert Projects, also directed by Professor [PERSON]. We acknowledge the work of the wider EAMENA and AKAP teams and partners in recording archaeological sites within the two case studies. The AKAP project is directed by [PERSON] (University of Leicester) and [PERSON] (University of Bologna). We would also like to thank [PERSON], inspector of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Aswan inspectorate, for her help with ground validation and with her skillful interaction with the local communities. The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.