Special Issue "Preservation, Reuse and Reveal of Cultural Heritage through Sustainable Land Management, Rural and Urban Development II"

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Contexts and Urban-Rural Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2023 | Viewed by 3075

Special Issue Editors

Department of Materials Science & Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str., 15773 Athens, Greece
Interests: preservation and conservation of cultural heritage; building materials; non-destructive testing; environmental assessment and management; sustainability of built environment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Laboratory of Photogrammetry, School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str., 15773 Athens, Greece
Interests: cultural heritage geometric documentation; HBIM; multi-dimensional modelling; city modelling; change detection; data fusion; photogrammetry; land management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Polytechniou Str, 15773 Athens, Greece
Interests: cultural heritage; building materials; nondestructive testing; sustainable development; environmental management; GIS
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cultural heritage contributes considerably in promoting economic, social and territory cohesion, as it enhances locals’ identity and appreciation for their land and its history.

However, cultural heritage is exposed to multiple risks due to ageing, adverse environmental conditions, and human pressure. As the environmental crisis is emphasized by intense climatic changes and extreme natural hazards, new demands on preservation strategies arise, to remediate and prevent damage on cultural heritage. In parallel and even though cultural tourism is acknowledged and used these last decades as a development and growth tool by many countries, nowadays it has experience overtourism in several cases. On the other hand, there are urban or rural areas, unable to assure a satisfactory standard of living for their population, thus facing underdevelopment and population decrease, even if these areas are rich in cultural reserve.

These kind of inequalities within urban matrices and/or regions require innovative methodologies and successfully applied expertise strategies in order to be diminished. Cultural heritage can be used as a growth pole for underdeveloped areas, whereas in overdeveloped areas alteration of socio-spatial patterns can lead to the improvement of cultural sites safeguarding and locals’ life quality. Whatever the case is, the principles of sustainability and circular economy can play a key role in land management and urban/rural development for achieving the goals of revitalization and balanced economic growth.

To sum up, this Special Issue aims to investigate as many as possible sides of the nexus: cultural heritage preservation, sustainable urban/rural land management, local society enhancement, and economic growth, to shed light into this multi-variant and complex scientific area, suggesting viable and novel resolving strategies.

Prof. Dr. Antonia Moropoulou
Prof. Dr. Charalabos Ioannidis
Dr. Ekaterini Delegou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable development
  • remote sensing
  • 3D modeling
  • spatial planning
  • GIS / HBIM
  • cultural routes
  • tangible/intangible cultural heritage
  • historical settlements
  • historical cities
  • circular economy
  • cultural tourism
  • environmental management

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (3 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Article
A Multicriteria Approach to Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Heritage: Case Studies of Riverside Power Plants
Land 2023, 12(2), 314; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12020314 - 22 Jan 2023
Viewed by 972
Abstract
City riverbanks usually have great landscape value and are iconic public spaces. However, there are many cities with large abandoned industrial buildings, such as power plants, on their riverbanks. Such buildings run the risk of being demolished in order to recover the surrounding [...] Read more.
City riverbanks usually have great landscape value and are iconic public spaces. However, there are many cities with large abandoned industrial buildings, such as power plants, on their riverbanks. Such buildings run the risk of being demolished in order to recover the surrounding natural landscape, despite having an important presence in the collective memory of the citizens and in the history of the city. This article seeks to analyse the reuse and refurbishment of industrial power plants on riversides from a modern artistic/recreational approach in order to restore and enhance the landscape value of the site by regenerating the environs and turning them into hubs of activity. Two case studies from different locations are considered in order to extract the information. A methodology is used that allows us to analyse and study a complex reality in a straightforward, concise and direct way. That means it can be used by many agents currently involved in those reuse processes to compare and to monitor the different cases over time. This research has sought to highlight the power plant typology, its relationship with the riverside, and subsequently, to extrapolate the criteria used to study other industrial buildings. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Article
Spatial Distribution of Urban Heritage and Landscape Approach to Urban Contextual Continuity: The Case of Suzhou
Land 2023, 12(1), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12010150 - 02 Jan 2023
Viewed by 786
Abstract
Suzhou, one of the most famous historical cities in China, has undergone significant urbanization over recent decades. These changes have caused a gradual separation of Suzhou’s urban heritage from its urban development and hindered the further growth of the city. This study analyzes [...] Read more.
Suzhou, one of the most famous historical cities in China, has undergone significant urbanization over recent decades. These changes have caused a gradual separation of Suzhou’s urban heritage from its urban development and hindered the further growth of the city. This study analyzes the distribution of tangible and intangible heritages that constitute the context of Suzhou combined with the historic urban landscape approach to obtain the following conclusions: (1) The current distribution of Suzhou’s urban heritage does not completely overlap with the built-up area of the city, and the non-overlapping areas reveal the imbalance of the current urban development and the fracture of the context of Suzhou; this imbalance is still a blind spot in the planning process. (2) The use of intangible cultural heritage will help to establish the possibility of contextual continuation in areas that lack urban heritage. (3) Multi-use community spaces that carry the intangible cultural heritage are particularly important for new urban areas, as they can help urban residents understand the traditional way of life in the region. (4) An approach to heritage management that goes beyond elitism, in conjunction with residents and communities, will help the ancient city to find a better balance between contextual continuity and economic development. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Article
Spatial Differentiation, Influencing Factors, and Development Paths of Rural Tourism Resources in Guangdong Province
Land 2022, 11(11), 2046; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11112046 - 15 Nov 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 714
Abstract
Rural tourism resources are the core carriers of rural tourism. It is, therefore, beneficial to further optimize the layout of rural tourism and to explore the spatial differentiation of rural tourism resources and their influencing factors. Taking 4670 rural tourism resources in Guangdong [...] Read more.
Rural tourism resources are the core carriers of rural tourism. It is, therefore, beneficial to further optimize the layout of rural tourism and to explore the spatial differentiation of rural tourism resources and their influencing factors. Taking 4670 rural tourism resources in Guangdong Province in China as the research object, this study explores the spatial distribution patterns of rural tourism resources through the nearest neighbor index, grid dimension analysis, kernel density analysis, and standard deviation ellipse method. Geodetectors are used to identify the influencing factors of the spatial heterogeneity of these resources in Guangdong Province. The findings reveal the following: (1) The distribution of rural tourism resources in Guangdong Province shows a tendency of agglomeration along the Tropic of Cancer, and the spatial distribution is unbalanced. The hot and cold spots show a “northeast-southwest” distribution trend. Furthermore, most of the hotspots form three high-density core areas, the sub-dense stretch zones connect into a w-shaped belt, and the sub-cold areas and sub-hot areas show a large expansion trend, thus forming five radiation areas. (2) The distribution of rural tourism resources in Guangdong Province is affected by multiple factors. In particular, the force of agricultural resource endowment, tourism resource endowment and transportation location are relatively strong, and social economy and tourist source market are the weak factors. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop