M. Ioannides et al. (Eds.): EuroMed 2014, LNCS 8740, pp. 598–605, 2014.
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
Geospatial Technologies for the Built Heritage
Management: Experiences in Sardinia, Italy
Michele Campagna, Maddalena Achenza, Yuri Iannuzzi, and Chiara Cocco
Università degli Studi di Cagliari, DICAAR
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale e Architettura, Via Marengo. 2,
09123 Cagliari, Italy
{campagna,labterra,iannuzzi}@unica.it,
kiara-mg@hotmail.it
Abstract. In the light of current developments in Information Communication
Technologies, this paper presents three case studies of the usage of geo-
information technologies concerning the management and recovery of historical
built heritage. With reference to the experiences of the authors in Sardinia, Italy
the first example reports on the impact of the Regional Spatial Data
Infrastructure to the safeguard of historical built heritage in urban and regional
landscape planning. The second example reports on the use of Geographic
Information Systems in historical centres redevelopment. The third example
deals with the development of a web-based knowledge base on the earth
architectural heritage aimed at supporting its recovery and reuse. Some
conclusive remarks outline the role of authoritative and volunteered sources of
information in the domain of historical built heritage.
Keywords: Geospatial technologies, web-GIS, built heritage, urban and
regional landscape planning, earth architecture.
1 Introduction
The interest of researchers and urban planners on information systems developments as
a support for the protection and management of historic built heritage has been
developed in Italy since early 1980s. It is worth mentioning early experiences such as
the development of a data base for the historic centre of Pietrasanta [1] or for the
historic centre of Cittadella [2]. The attention to this field of study was further enhanced
in the following decade, reaching a high degree of maturity along with the Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) evolution. In Europe at the end of the 1990s the
work of HISTOCITY [3], a European research network that between 1997 and 2000 has
promoted the exchange of knowledge on the use of Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) to support sustainable historic centres re-development, have helped to clarify the
relationship between the construction of digital archives of spatial data on historical
settlements and their support on decision making for urban recovery.
In the last decade, developments and the pervasive diffusion of Information
Communication Technology (ICT), have enriched the architectural models of GIS,