Acrocorinth is a steep rock 575m high that dominates the plain of the modern and ancient city of Corinth, in Greece. Today it is one of the most important archaeological sites in Greece, with a lot of visitors. The entrance area of the archaeological site is located at the entry point of the Castle, where for defensive reasons it was originally built in a position where it is particularly exposed to all kinds of natural hazards and rockfalls.
This paper analyzes the risks posed by rock falls (2) in the entrance area of the archaeological site, the footbridge and the visitor access road and examines the wider area which is an active geomorphological field, where rock falls have been occurring for centuries. The phenomenon of rocks and boulders falling from the steep slopes of Acrocorinthos is considered chronic, while evidence of rock falls already exists since ancient times.
In the context of the present research, due to the steep morphology, a drone with rtk and a high-definition camera was used to survey the high and steep slopes, in order to create a high-resolution 3D terrain model (3) that can clarify in detail the geometric characteristics of its discontinuities rock mass (1). The terrain model was created using ESRI's drone2map program, which is directly linked to ArcGISPro for further processing. After creating the high-resolution 3D model, the file was exported in point cloud format to determine the orientation and kinematics of the rock mass discontinuities. Then the kinetic energy of the potential rockfalls was analyzed using the 3D model and the wider area was demarcated into risk zones for rockfalls. Summarizing in the present work, the methodological approach for the creation of rockfall hazard zones using a digital terrain model is presented that could be widely used in corresponding cases.