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Beyond conserving urban heritage, the concept of historic urban landscapes (HULs) aims to tackle poverty and inequality, as well as to improve the quality of human settlements, through a people-centered approach in the context of rapid urbanization. This paper demonstrates the adaption of HUL tools and methodologies to investigate a slum in a historical city—the informal settlements along the Mae Kha Canal in Chiang Mai. An on-site field survey of the characteristics of the settlement’s composition and interviews with stakeholders, local authorities, and inhabitants were conducted. The analysis revealed that there is a gap between the desired strategy of the Mae Kha Canal agenda and the actual conditions of the location. The aforementioned contrast is discussed to suggest alternate options for upgrading the informal community while preserving its ancient walls, in line with HUL principles. The conclusion highlights the benefits of introducing the HUL approach in a slum setting and provides recommendations for deteriorated neighborhoods elsewhere that are either surrounded by or adjacent to historical features needing resilience.

Abstract The visual integrity of mountains contributing to cultural landscapes as nature-culture attributes is often obscured by the vertical intrusive built environment, especially in buffer areas of protected heritage zones. Therefore, this study argued that even low/medium-rise buildings that inappropriately appear in the horizontal visual plane could be a factor increasing sensitivity to this panoramic view. An integrative tool – visual sensitivity assessment – consists of Viewshed and Skyline analysis considering the pedestrian’s visual limitation in identifying the sensitive areas of the mountain view corridor in the historic city of Chiang Mai. The visible mountain areas (VMAs) were determined as a baseline, and their relationship with the visible building areas (VBAs) was then examined using statistical correlation to define a strong negative relationship as the visual sensitive areas in five zones. The results showed that the buffer zone was found to have more areas with visual sensitivity values, but this varies depending on the characteristics of buildings and the assessment from the view corridor. Meanwhile, in height-restricted areas, such as historic area zone 5, there are some concerns about the visual intrusion, which necessitates continuous monitoring using the assessment result as a guideline. Incorporating the results into implementation could support cultural landscape conservation in Chiang Mai city. The method is applicable in historic cities with similar settings to produce the baseline for the built environment that is harmonious with the cultural and historical characteristics of the city and with respect to its broader setting.

The cultural landscape of Chiang Mai city, which is characterized by the interlinkage between mountain and historical settlement, has faced the adverse impacts of visual intrusion in its buffer zone from urbanization. However, there are challenges to creating a quantitative visual evaluation for decision making in response to rapid urban change. This study evaluated the impact of building height on the city skyline and utilized existing cultural heritage locations on the mountain to define a protected visual zone while conducting a 3D-GIS-based visibility analysis to identify obstruction in three scenarios: the actual condition scenario (ACS) considering current conditions, the land use scenario (LUS) considering the land use ordinance, and the proposed scenario (PPS) considering mountain skyline protection, using computer-generated 3D city modeling. The comparative results from the analysis of viewshed, line of sight, and development area calculations revealed that the number of obstructed locations in the LUS decreased by 48.46%, and in the PPS, they decreased by 77.99%, while the development area increased by similar amounts, demonstrating that the city can grow and develop despite stricter height controls. In addition, based on a visual assessment, this study established a buffer distance and intensity to protect the integrity of the heritage while allowing the city to develop.

Abstract This paper revealed urban axis and city shape identity that influenced by its concepts and present activities issues in ‘Lan Na’ historic cities in northern Thailand. This study using space syntax technic called axial line analysis combined with GIS analysis, to examines how history geo-politic issues have influenced to its urban axis and network. Results show urban axis has highly coexisted with its city shape determined through high integrated axial lines. This city shape was, however, defined by its establishment concepts as ‘Sankh’, ‘Traiphum’ and freeform. Different shapes of urban axis have been determined by these concepts. As well as the largest public space in some ‘Lan Na’ historic cities, it directly attaches to high integrate lines that represent as urban axis core. However, depending on gradually develop influences, the function of public space in urban axis core has various types. Mostly, these spaces, have related to Buddhism religious usage or colonialism spaces. Settlement pattern using kernel analysis revealed that residents in every city settled in a tranquil area determined by space syntax. Additionally, settlement clusters adjacent to urban axis or high activities traffic. In summary, from reviewed historic cities in ‘Lan Na’, it found that this urban axis could be identified using multi-method. To enhance urban axis in historic cities, both object and subject aspect had to be revealed to apply as delicate historic conservation measures.

Residents under hazard and disaster conditions should be evacuating to the pre-assigned nearest safety facilities, community hall, local schools, friend's houses, etc. in a safety zone, quickly as soon as possible. The small percentage of evacuees shows serious economy class syndrome after the quake, because those people are forced to a stressful dairy evacuee-life in scattered homes and/or in-vehicle, for instance. Then, we consider on supporting evacuees using heart rate variability, Geospatial Positioning System (GPS) and WiFi functions of a smartphone, and Web-server on the Internet to keep their health in good conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes design and development of a system that supports continuous creation of hazard maps by local residents in their daily life. We made an interview survey to design our system in a model traditional town in Saga, Japan. The results show that in spite of continuous efforts, many practical problems remain and residents feel unsafe. Based on these results, we designed and developed a unique ICT-based support system which contributes to community-based disaster prevention/reduction. The continuous resident participation and posting design are core concept for our sustainable community-based approach. Our system continues to support making a hazard map by integrating the community-based hazard information. Local residents register information about the spot (disaster types, a risk level, a photograph, comments, positional information) that can be dangerous in case of disaster. We have evaluated the usefulness and possibilities of our prototype system implemented as an iOS application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many severe earthquakes have occurred along the main fault lines in the world. In recent years, there has been a high incidence of small- and large-scale earthquakes in our country. These occurrences of earthquakes have become increasingly serious, owing to a degrading earth environment. An earthquake, in general, causes far more serious damages like disruptions in electricity or gas facilities, and fire disasters from its annexed effects than by its vibrations or the shock itself. In this paper, we present a countermeasure and its necessity in safeguarding against fire disasters in regional heritage villages such as "Asan Oeam," "Jeonju Hanok," and "Andong Hahoe." A more systematic and effective strategy for prevention systems against severe fire disasters is proposed after performing various related investigations and analyses of existing domestic and international systems. We investigated the existing fire security systems and their historical records with the tendency of earthquake occurrences in these three folk villages. In this proposal, we present a strategic approach for safeguarding against fire damages in our regional heritage villages derived from ICT (information communication technology)-based DPD (disaster prevention design), after examining the laws and regulations of fire-prevention strategies in Japan, America, and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The course of a city's development has an effect on both spatial and social aspects, and this situation affects ethnic communities. As a result of recent urban developments, the cultural values of a community that are embedded in living arrangements have been disturbed, thus obscuring, or even hiding, the rich cultural heritage therein. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the spatial characteristics of local neighborhoods based on a wealth of cultural heritage objects. This research focuses on the physical cultural heritage of the Bantik settlement in Malalayang. The spatial characteristics of cultural heritage objects are analyzed, based on physical and other characteristics. The results indicate that, although the Bantik ethnic community in Malalayang, Indonesia, has physical cultural heritage sites, it is unable to effectively develop these as significant cultural spaces because of the physical separation of their locations, the declining meaning of these sites to the community, and the lack of support from indigenous organizations. Distance is not the only determinant of the optimization of cultural space. Planning for cultural spaces involves three zones: 1) a promotion zone, 2) a core zone, and 3) a buffer zone. The greatest potential for developing a cultural space is in the vicinity of Minanga Road and the Niopo Stone, with the physical object reinforcement of similar sites. To improve cultural space, it is not enough to only rely on the existence of a physical object, it is necessary to create a close relationship between the object and the community with the support of indigenous organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a integrated real-time monitoring system for recycling agriculture resourcing based on USN. We design and implement the monitoring system so that we can integrate the quality control of farmyard and liquid manures, barn environment monitoring, and positioning information control into a total management system performing recycling of excrement and manure. Selection of sensors and sensor-node construction and requirements, structure of wire/wireless communication networks, and design of monitoring program are also presented. As a result of operating our system, we can get over various drawbacks of conventional separated system and promote the proper circulation of excrement up to the farmyard. We confirm that these advanced effects arise from the effective management of the total system integrating quality control of farmyard/liquid manure, barn/farmhouse information, and vehicle moving monitoring information etc. Moreover, this monitoring system is able to exchange real-time information throughout communication networks so that we can construct a convenient information environment for agricultural community by converging IT technology with farm and stockbreeding industries. Finally we present some results of processing using our monitoring system. Sensing data and their graphs are processed in real-time, positioning information on the v-world map offers various moving paths of vehicles, and statistical analysis shows all the procedure from excrement occurrence to recycling and resourcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]