Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

This project analyzes the relationship between conservation areas and the development trends of connected human settlements. The objective of this research is to bring together heritage, planning, geographical, and urban development aspects to build evidence of the urban dynamics generated by world heritage. A starting point will be the classification of cities according to their heritage zoning not only in the terms of their protection system (Turner 2014) but according to the nature of the relation of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) and its surrounding urban areas (Pereira, 2010). A OUV property is a cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity. This classification will be compared to the built environment maps to define how the found trends in the city developments can be related to the properties. To make the WH Dataset not only an archive but also an effective tool to monitor, compare, and analyse the status of conservation areas in terms of their dynamics and relations the research will apply different methods, integrating the qualitative classification based on the morphologies of urban settlements and the above-defined classification of WH properties (Pereira, 2010) to traditional or innovative quantitative parameters provided by U — TEP platform and derived Land Use — Land Cover (LULC) maps, along with an empirical approach to the existing material in terms of the dataset, maps, digital documentation.