Cultural Landscape’s Spatial Management: Concept, Model and Advanced Mapping Tools

The semantic expansion that heritage concept has experienced during last decades has brought about a progressive inclusion of landscape notion in heritage sphere and a great effort for heritage’s contextualization and integration in other sectoral policies. In order to make progress in this new panorama, this text presents the theoretical basis and the structure of a territory-based spatial management model for Cultural Landscapes oriented to promote their sustainable use. The increasing commitment in heritage scenario to strategies that make it work as an active resource for society results in the need to reformulate the traditional mechanisms of heritage management. To this effect, the proposed model promotes the connection of heritage with spatial planning and large scaled intervention projects from a management framework, overtaking the traditional static condition of the procedures conducted in heritage sphere. The model, which is applied to the archaeological site of Italica (Seville, Spain) and its landscape area, particularly studies the possibilities of relating heritage management processes to the landscape architecture project. For that purpose, the model is supported by the use of Geographical Information Systems. The application of geospatial technologies in this context allows to explore the potential of this type of resources that go beyond data visualization and rely on advanced data processing for architecture field.