An information system for heritage documentation management of Cuenca city, Ecuador

Abstract

The understanding and safeguarding of Cultural Heritage involves the collection, storage and processing of all forms of relevant information pertaining to it. Whereas the heterogeneous sets of data help understanding the heritage monument or site; heritage data management is an essential task for the use, dissemination, protection and conservation of the monuments. Compiling heritage monument records is still mostly a manual procedure, while computer technology partially solved data organization and archiving of individual components. Additionally, a main bottle neck for the archiving of heritage information of sites belonging to the World Heritage List is that information is collected and archived by a variety of institutions and that each archiving organization has its own protocol and tradition of data storage and dissemination. To integrate the dispersed available information, which would facilitate the retrieval of information and making the information available for decision-making, this paper presents a concept of Heritage Information System (HIS) based on: (i) value-based assessment at different scales, (ii) a heritage (geo) database, and (iii) a geographic information system (GIS). For the development of the concept heritage data of the historic city of Cuenca (World Heritage Site, 1999), Ecuador, were used.