THE RESEARCH AND APPLICATION OF SPATIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 
IN CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION 
— CASE STUDY ON GRAND CANAL OF CHINA 
Feng Mao, Ze Liu*, Wensheng Zhou, Jianxi Huang, Qiang Li 
School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, - liuze06@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn 
KEY WORDS: Spatial Information Sciences, Cultural Heritage, Grand Canal of China, Research, Application 
ABSTRACT: 
This work is part of a multidisciplinary research project, within the National Key Technology R&D Program, “The Research and 
Application of Spatial Information Technology for conservation of large-scale heritage sites”, developed in collaboration with 
archaeologists and researchers from the field of geoinfomatics and hydrology, which aims at the application of spatial information 
technology for cultural heritage conservation, especially the large-scale heritage sits, a case study on Grand Canal of China is carried 
out. This paper presents the principal achievements we have gotten and puts forward some challenging issuers accordingly. At first, 
the related definitions are discussed; and some successful cases are reviewed. After the review, an integrated framework for the 
application of spatial information technology in conserving cultural heritage is conceived, based upon analysis of whole conserving 
process, information transferring flow, and domain model. Then the content and framework of this research project are studied by 
the logic and technical structure. Some key methods involved are discussed subsequently; also the main results and new findings are 
investigated in details. Finally combing with the opinions from experts of cultural heritage conservation, this paper concludes the 
project’s established results objectively, and present the research plan in the future. The involved contents of this study could be 
found on http://geospatial.arch.tsinghua.edu.cn, a website developed for this project especially. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
There are many successful examples indicating that spatial 
information technology (SIT) is very useful and necessary to 
conserve historical cultural heritages, including the serial 
processes of prospecting, investigating, extracting, preservation 
planning, documenting and monitoring. Especially Geography 
Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) have been 
widely used to carry out related activities. 
1.1 Cultural Heritage and Cultural Heritage Conservation 
A concise discussion and perhaps definition of “cultural 
heritage” and “cultural heritage conservation” is conducted here 
in order to confine the scope of this study, and ensure the 
common understanding of the terms mentioned in this paper. 
1.1.1 Cultural Heritage 
Cultural can be represented by material objects like buildings, 
paintings and monuments, but also non-material manifestations 
like language, dance, song, cuisine, custom, religion, landscape, 
literature, art, philosophy and, even television programs 
(Ogleby, 1995). In 1954 the General Conference of UNESCO 
adopted the term, cultural heritage, as an international 
convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event 
of Armed Conflict (known as Hague Convention), which refers 
cultural property as tangible and physical objects. The similar 
meaning can be found from the famous Convention Concerning 
the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 
1972, also by General Conference of UNESCO. For the sake of 
this study the above meaning will suffice as it is generally 
accepted. Much of this paper will concentrate on SIT 
applications to material cultural heritage, but it will also address 
some issues of intangible cultural heritages along Grand Canal 
of China (GCC). 
1.1.2 Cultural Heritage Conservation 
Following the hints of above dissertations, it can be discerned 
an integral process of cultural heritage conservation should at 
least include 1) prospecting for cultural heritage and 
investigating correspondingly; 2) evaluation of cultural heritage, 
including its values, preservation status, potential hazards and 
so on; 3) establishing and carrying out reasonable preservation 
planning; 4) effective monitoring on cultural heritage and 
feedback in time. In the section 2, a flow chart of applying SIT 
in each aspects of cultural heritage conservation will be brought 
out and discussed detailedly. 
1.2 SIT Applied to Cultural Heritages Conservation 
1.2.1 Digital Recording and Analysis Based upon GIS 
Last decades witnessed the rapid increase of applying GIS to 
preserve cultural heritage. GIS is mainly used for cultural 
resource inventory applications, protections planning, impact 
assessment studies, facilities management and archaeological 
research applications. In 1990s UNESCO utilized GIS to 
integrate data efficiently from the field of archaeology, 
geography, hydrology, weather, environment and demographic 
data in the Angkor Zoning and Environment Management Plan, 
Cambodia. Then the usefulness of GIS was demonstrated in 
other UNESCO pilot sites at Hue, Viet Nam and Vat Phou, Lao 
PDR and other sites in Europe, Australia and North America 
(Paul Box, 1990). 
GIS, especially spatial analysis plays a significant role in 
'archaeological research, etc, landscape archaeology, predictive 
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