GIS and Heritage
Geographic information system (GIS) is a system which helps to record and analyze geographic information. Esri, a GIS company who develops ArcGIS, define GIS, which lets us visualize, question, analyze, and interpret data to understand relationships, patterns, and trends. The usage of GIS is broad. Google map, for example, is one of the most popular GIS interface, which helps to navigate, search locations, set routes and calculate traveling time. GIS also contributes to city planning, academic research and economic activities.
One of the possibility of implementation of GIS is heritage-oriented, which facilitate the heritage conservation, documentation and communication. The Old City of Jerusalem Revitalization Program (OCJRP) started a GIS project in 1994 and aims to establish the documentation of the Old City of Jerusalem. Their database not only helps the architectural conservation, but also raising the community awareness of cultural heritage and prompting the development of cultural tourism.
GIS in Museums
Recently, museums and institutions are devoted to GIS projects and research. GIS plays roles as research tool and interpretation medium in a museum setting. The location of objects is an important information for museum researchers, especially in provenance research. GIS can work with objects providing geographic information for research purposes, such as where the objects are discovered, transferred or excavated.
Archaeological objects, for an example, are recorded in the places where they were found on the surface or from excavation. Then, researchers would be able to manage and analyze that group of archaeological objects with the map and develop a more accurate interpretation for that group of objects.
GIS is also able to contribute the preventive conservation for heritage sites. GIS records help the conservators to understand the heritage and the changes of the nearby environment. For instant, if the GIS shows that community develops rapidly in these few years and is heading towards the heritage site, the conservators should be aware the potential treat of their neighbors and take action to protect the heritage sites.
GIS and Community Nearby Heritage Sites
GIS is not limited to function for museums and researches, which can also contribute the community nearby heritage sites. OCJRP brought benefits to the community in the Old City of Jerusalem from their GIS project. The project raised the community awareness of cultural heritage conservation. The citizen, as the stakeholder of the heritage, contribute the information back to OCJRP participating in the whole project of the protection of the City. The project created a sustainable development and complementary relationship in the community.
Also, GIS contributes to prompt the development of tourism for the heritage sites and nearby community. In OCJRP, GIS provides information to make tour guides, maps and historical information for tourists. The easy access and sufficiency of information encourages visitors to the Old City. Furthermore, GIS could work with technologies, such as smartphone, providing a better experience for visitors. Newcastle Emlyn is a smartphone app working with GPS providing self-guided tour for users. All the historic buildings and their information are pinned on the map in the app. Visitors could design their own visiting route and acquire information of the historic buildings with the app. It is a simple implementation of GIS in cultural tourism.
Besides tourism, GIS is potential to help developing a better and safe living condition for the community. Some people live close to, or even live in, historic buildings. Those buildings are aged, deteriorated and have weak structures. When there are natural disasters, the heritage buildings would tend to collapse and become the threat of lives. A GIS database of aged buildings could lead the city planning, avoiding exceeded people living close to the historic buildings. It also helps to develop a strategic conservation plan for those historic buildings.
Conclusion
Documentation is necessary in heritage conservation. It is also an important reason to build a GIS for heritage sites. In museums, GIS contributes to research and interpretation. On heritage sites, GIS plays a role to record the changes of the landscape in different periods and provide spatial information for visitors. Recently, 3D GIS emerges, which brought a new sense of map reading for audiences. Although the control and management of 3D GIS are complicated and need to be improved (or adapted), it will become a useful tool to facilitate heritage documentation, conservation and communication.
References:
Audiotrails. (2016, October 20). Newcastle Emlyn Heritage Trail. Retrieved from Audiotrails: http://audiotrails.co.uk/newcastle-emlyn-app/
B. Husseini, & Z. Bali. (2015). Documentation, using GIS techniques in conservation of a World Heritage Site, a case study of “The Old City of Jerusalem”. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XL-5/W7, 229–234.
esri. (2016, November 2). What is GIS? Retrieved from esri: http://www.esri.com/what-is-gis
Gillings, M. (2012). Landscape Phenomenology, GIS and the Role of Affordance. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 19(4), 601–611.
J. He, J. Liu, S. Xu, C. Wu, & J. Zhang. (2015). A GIS-Based Cultural Heritage Study Framework on Continuous Scales: A Case Study on 19th Century Military Industrial Heritage. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences,XL-5/W7, 215–222.
