The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B5. Beijing 2008 
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because of the canal’s unique spatial-temporal characters, help 
general peoples, professionals and governments enhancing their 
realization, research and management of the canal, especially to 
support the proposing for world cultural heritage with detailed 
cultural heritage document and excellent spatial information 
management. 
Figure 1. Grand Canal during the Yuan Dynasty, 1280-1367 BC 
Adapted from Leonard (1996) 
2.2 The Framework of SIT Applied to Conservation GCC 
Based upon the analysis of current practice of cultural heritage 
conservation in China, a comprehensive framework showing the 
application of SIT is proposed (Figure 3). At first, the whole 
process is divided into several parts, investigating and 
prospecting cultural heritage, assessing heritage’s value, 
determining conservation grade, establishing and implementing 
preservation plan, monitoring and feedback timely. During each 
single part, there are many methods of applying SIT to carry 
out the corresponding protecting activities as discussed in part 1 
of this paper. 
For protecting and investigation, GIS, RS and GPS technologies 
are integrated to indentify the cultural resources from their 
environments, and would keep a digital document completely. 
For assessing of heritages, there are value evaluation, health 
evaluation, and assessing of management condition, which 
would take use of the supporting ability of spatial information 
technology. After the step of evaluation, SIT can be used to fix 
grades of cultural resources into world heritage, national 
heritage, provincial heritage and county-heritage, taking 
account of laws, historical background, and local customs. 
Then the conservation plan would be issued and carried out to 
safeguard cultural property from grave-robbers, protect cultural 
sites from environment degradation, mostly related to 
unchecked urban development. SIT would be found necessary 
in this process as showed in the field of urban planning, where 
planning supporting system based upon GIS and VR has 
achieved great success (Geertman et ai, 2003). Finally RS is . 
applied for regular checking and monitoring of cultural heritage, 
especially large-scale cultural site in order to acquire effective 
feed back. 
On the basis of above application flow chart, the content of this 
research project is mainly organized into four proportions. The 
first one is to study and set up necessary standards for the 
application of spatial information technology in the field of 
cultural heritage conservation. The second part is the research 
of key technologies involved, including cultural relics 
investigating with remote sensing, reconstruction and 3D 
modelling of the canal and spatial analysis utilized in field 
archaeology. The third one is research and development of 
spatial data base, geography information system, conservation 
planning support system of the canal, and spatial data collecting 
system based upon GPS and PDA. Finally based upon the rich 
content of spatial database and established functions of above 
information systems, some thematic studies are carried out, in 
cooperation with professionals from hydraulic history and 
cultural heritage conservation, including evolutionary process 
of GCC, LUCC studies on certain sites, and the distribution of 
cultural heritages along GCC. 
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Figure 2. The Grand Canal of China on remote sensing 
imagery