Research and Application of Spatial Information Technology on Grand Canal of China

This paper presents the major outcomes of a multidisciplinary research project - the Research and Application of Spatial Information Technology for Conservation of Large-scale Heritage Sites, which is within the National Key Technology R&D Program and aims to apply spatial information technology for cultural heritage conservation, especially the large-scale heritage sites, and takes the Grand Canal of China (GCC) to conduct a case study. At first an integrated framework for the application of spatial information technology in conserving cultural heritage was conceived comprehensively. Then some standards were established with the effort of domain experts including the standards for metadata, spatial data and professional data. Besides that a spatial data base of GCC, a PDA based system for data collecting and GIS system for GCC was set up and reviewed in detail. Finally this paper appraises the project´s established results objectively; present the research planning in the future.