Cartography and Land Use change of world heritage areas and the benefits of remote sensing and GIS for conservation and monitoring world heritage sites

Remote sensing has been widely used within various fields, with environmental applications being the most widespread. Through the joint effort of UNESCO, OSTC Belgium, Geography Dept, Ghent University and Labo SURFACES of Geomatic Dept, Liege University, a demo project to conserve five world Heritage sites was launched. The remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) project attempted to provide basic cartography of the world heritage sites and also detect land use changes in and around the sites in the past ten years. A final contribution towards the conservation and monitoring of the world Heritage sites was made through this project. To fulfil the objectives of this project an internet site was created to provide information to a wider public audience. This raises awareness of not only the location and status of the selected Heritage sites, but also contributes to an improved information base leading to the sustainable management of these sites.