Abstract
Abstract. Water is a prevalent deterioration agent for historic masonry works, especially those made of clay-bearing sandstones. To preserve cultural heritage made of sandstone, it is important to monitor, and then detect the regions with water retention or stone deterioration. To that aim, we investigate the prospects of terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) intensities for quantifying moisture in sandstone. Through a series of experiments following the drying processes of sandstone samples, we verify that TLS intensities can serve as moisture proxies for remote-sensing water retention. We identify the theoretically most suitable wavelengths, systematic effects requiring mitigation, and promising mitigation strategies. However, we also observe that the intensities are significantly affected by the type of sandstone and its level of degradation. Our results indicate that it is possible to distinguish different sandstones and levels of artificial degradation by observing and analyzing TLS-intensity time series during the drying process.