Monitoring and assessing the destruction of archaeological sites from Kuibyshev reservoir coastline, Tatarstan Republic, Russian Federation. A case study

Abstract

© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature. The paper presents the research undertaken in the coastal area of Kuibyshev Reservoir from Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. The aim of the research is to assess the erosion rate of the coastline, to identify the most dynamic parts, and to improve the predictions of the future archaeological sites being under threat from coastal erosion. As a baseline, Soviet aerial images and topographic surveys were combined in a GIS in order to create a database and a 3D model of the coastline, which will serve as a base for future surveys. The most dynamic part is located in the North-western part, from 1958 until 1980 (22 years), 150 m from the coastline being eroded (6.81 m/year), leading to the complete disappearance of the hillfort, only the South-eastern bastion remaining. The coastline is very dynamic, with an increasing erosion rate from 2012, when the first topographic surveys were undertaken. There have been proposed mitigation measures, the most significant one is to completely eliminate the exploitation road along the coastline.