A Settlement Landscape Reconstruction Approach Using GIS Analysis with Integrated Terrain Data of Land and Water: A Case Study of the Panlongcheng Site in the Shang Dynasty (Wuhan, China)

The landscape of ancient sites has changed greatly with the passage of time. Among all of the factors, human activities and the change in natural environment are the main factors leading to the change in site landscape. The Panlongcheng site, which is located in Hubei Province, China, has a history of 3500 years with the most abundant relics in the Yangtze River Basin during the Shang Dynasty. As a near-water site, the landscape of the Panlongcheng site is greatly affected by water level changes and water conservancy activities. In this paper, by using spatial information technology, the data obtained from land and underwater archaeological exploration were integrated to restore landscapes of Panlongcheng sites in different periods. After removing modern artificial features and topsoil, the landscapes of the sites before the Shang Dynasty, in the Shang Dynasty and modern time were reconstructed. Combining historical records of water level changes, the landscape and water–land distribution of the Panlongcheng site were compared. The analysis results reflect the interaction between water level changes and human activities in this region for thousands of years, and support the archaeological findings in the near-water area of the Panlongcheng site, which provides a new idea for the landscape reconstruction and analysis of near-water sites.

THE EXPLORATION OF APPLYING OF SPATIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN GENERAL PLAN FOR REGIONAL CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION

With the rapid urbanization and the sharp increasing of the amount of official identification cultural heritages, the Chinese government and public are paying more attention to the regional comprehensive preservation, exhibition and utilization of the cultural heritages in recent years. “General Plan for Regional Cultural Heritage Preservation” offers a new systematic conservating solution for the cluster of cultural heritages in an administrative region. For the past few years, lots of new spatial information technologies have been applied in the preservation of cultural heritages, which tremendously improved the level and effectiveness of cultural heritage recording, management, monitoring and exhibition. This article will focus on discussing the methods and applying prospect of the technologies of geographic information system, 3D laser scanning, photogrammetry modeling in general planning for regional cultural heritage preservation and utilization.In recent years, with the continuous development of cultural heritage preservation in China, an increasing number of provinces and cities began to organize General Plans for regional cultural heritage preservation (hereinafter called "General Plan"), through which local governments are able to control the risk and improve the preservation level of cultural heritage (IAH, 2004).This paper will introduce the working framework of the General Plan and the core problems to be solved, and then analyze the application mode and prospect of spatial information technology in the General Plan.

Teaching of Remote Sensing Technology for Landscape Architecture in the Context of Spatial Information Technology

The research of digital landscape architecture springs up in recent years. The emerging digital technology provides a rational and objective method to mine and quantify the endogenous laws of landscape architecture. Remote sensing (RS) technology has become a new growth point in the current research and design of landscape spatial information. To develop the professional teaching of landscape architecture, it is important to fully integrate the RS technology into the teaching system of spatial information technology, carry out systematic spatial information quantification and research-based teaching of landscape architecture, and collaboratively promote the teaching of landscape architecture design. This paper firstly analyzes the integration and application potential of RS technology into landscape architecture. Considering the demand and trend of information-based teaching of landscape architecture, the authors integrated the relevant technologies into an RS teaching platform for landscape architecture, and summarized an application model of RS technology in the teaching of landscape architecture theories and practices. Moreover, a landscape spatial information chain, which is question-oriented, task-driven, and exploration-based, was constructed to promote the synergistic development between the students’ research and practice ability under spatial information integration.

LIDAR DERIVED 3D CITY MODELLING

With the developing computer technologies and increasing data variety, academic and commercial studies started to move from 2 dimensions to 3 dimensions and within the concept of 3D Spatial Information Technology; Many new products and methods have emerged, such as the Digital Earth, Smart City, Virtual Reality, Intelligent Transportation Systems. 3D models of cities are now produced as well as 2D maps. These models can be used in many areas from urban planning, navigation applications, modelling of ancient cities to training and simulation applications. In this context, there are a few data set such as aerial images and LiDAR data, that can be used as 3D data source for modelling purposes. Within the scope of the study, an automatic 3D city model was produced with Envi LiDAR software.

Application of Taiwan’s Human Rights-Themed Cultural Assets and Spatial Information

Cultural assets preserve the traces of people’s life history around the world. With an understanding of the historical context and meaning of cultural assets, people would cherish their value and then adopt appropriate cultural resource preservation strategies. Human rights as the universal value refer to the inalienable and basic rights of human beings. This article uses the National Cultural Assets Network to query Taiwan’s human rights-themed cultural assets, and I apply the spatial information technology of the DocuSky digital humanities academic research platform to draw the maps with GIS and visualization tools. Also, I apply spatial information to the academic research of human rights-themed cultural assets, aiming to deepen local cultural identity and unveiling that human studies influence spatial practice. Tourism is an important experience economy. Based on the value of Taiwan’s human rights-themed cultural assets, I plan to guide the human rights journey in Taipei to share Taiwan’s experience of happiness with the world, as well.

An Evolutionary Approach to Technology Innovation of Cadastre for Smart Land Management Policy

In this study, we attempted to quantitatively determine the characteristics of keyword networks in the cadastre field using major contents of research drawn from international academic papers. Furthermore, we investigated the macroscopic evolution of cadastral research and examined its keyword network in detail (at a global scale) using semantic analysis. The analysis was carried out based on cadastral-research-related publications extracted from “Scopus” for 1987 to 2019. It was found that cadastre research has closely followed the recent trend of a growing interest in research on geospatial information and standardization. The results showed the advancement of technology innovation within the field of cadastres, as highlighted in the combination of relevant keywords (mostly from those related to spatial information technology and participation of civilians). These new issues are expected to drive the evolution of the academic scope in the future through synthesis with other fields for smart land management policy.

Digital Heritage

Natural and cultural heritage, the common wealth of human beings, are keys to human understanding of the evolution of our planet and social development. The protection and conservation of natural and cultural heritage is the common responsibility of all mankind. Spatial information technology provides a new applied theory and tool for the protection and utilization of natural and cultural heritage. This chapter is divided into four parts. The first part elaborates the connotation of digital heritage, the differences and connections between digital heritage and physical heritage, the technology of digital heritage formation and the research objectives and content of digital heritage. Parts 2 and 3 discuss the contents and methods of digital natural heritage and cultural heritage, respectively, and some practical case studies. In the fourth part, the future development trends of digital heritage research in protection and utilization are described, as well as six research directions that deserve attention.

Safety Assessment of Tunnel Portals for Site Selection Based on Spatial Information Geoprocessing

The evaluation of portal locations for mountain tunnels is among the most crucial considerations during route selection and structural layout planning. The development of spatial information technology has provided a more objective approach for assessing the slope stability of potential portal sites. The simulations in such studies have been performed to evaluate potential hazards and slope stability. However, potential instabilities resulting from excavation are seldom considered in these studies. Therefore, a method based on spatial information technology was developed in this study for considering the potential impact of the direction and depth of excavations on portal stability. An analysis method for an infinite slope was integrated into the geographical information system for evaluating the stability of critical wedges. The proposed method provides a reasonable estimation comparable with that provided by the conventional slice method. The results of applying this method to six mountain tunnel portals where slope instability occurred during construction indicate that the actual outcomes agreed with the predicted outcomes. For potential portal site evaluation, the proposed method facilitates the rapid estimation of safety factors for various slope designations, which is useful for site selection.