The Role of ICT in Mapping Resources for Sustainable Historic Urban Regeneration: Case Studies of Amsterdam and Salerno

Abstract: According to the UNESCO Recommendations on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), mapping the available resources is critical for successful project implementation. These resources entail natural, cultural and human resources ranging from tangible to intangible. Mapping these resources can contribute to a systematical identification, analysis, and classification of location-based values for the management of a sustainable historic urban regeneration process. Currently, the mainly adopted mapping approaches are paper map, online mapping applications, non-spatial mapping, geography information system (GIS), surveys and interviews. These tools include both traditional and innovative tools, however they are quite diverse and not integrated. The innovative tools incorporating information and communication technology (ICT) are recognized to be useful to foster a public inclusion and a bottom-up management for the sustainable historic urban regeneration. This because these tools enable a variety of actors to create and visualize data. Based on this proposition, this research investigates the role of ICT in mapping resources in particular in a participatory way to support an inclusive implementation of sustainable historic urban regeneration practices. In this paper, the role of ICT is studied through literature review and case studies. The literature review provides the current application in and future potential of ICT for mapping resources. To complement the results of the literature review, two case studies are conducted in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Salerno (Italy). The case studies show that different data sources such as location-based social networks, administrative data, online and offline surveys and interviews, and local sensors are useful for participatory mapping of resources. This assessment of two case studies revealed that ICT platforms such as open data platforms, interactive platforms, decision support systems are recognized as three main solutions for disseminating knowledge to the public and enable their participation in historic urban regeneration processes. The outcomes show that ICT has potential for fostering the public participation to achieve sustainable regeneration of historic urban areas.