Digital Heritage for Smart Regions

Digital Heritage for Smart Regions (Time Machine). Test-case: Herentals and the Kleine Nete.

  • Promotor: Soens Tim, Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis
  • Co-promotors: Kestemont Mike, Antwerp Centre for Digital Humanities and Literary Criticism | Van Damme Ilja, Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis | Verlinden Jouke, Productontwikkeling
  • Researchers: Iason Jongepier, Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis | Ric Janssens, Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis | Rogier van Kooten, Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis
  • In co-operation with: Provincie Antwerpen

How can we unlock the Wisdom of the Past to answer spatial challenges today? The Digital Revolution is producing massive amounts of digital and digitized historical and archaeological data, which can be located with different degrees of precision in the landscape. Once integrated in a Geographical Information System (GIS), these data can be turned into a digital 'Time Machine'. In this project, funded by the Province of Antwerp, and framed in the scientific collaboration between the Province and the University of Antwerp, we test the potential of Time Machine technologies on the Herentals-Kleine Nete region, more specifically adressing the question of the historical land-use and water management of the river wetlands along the river Kleine Nete. If successfull, the project will result in 1) an integrated methodology for the use of digital and digitized data in landscape history and archaeolgy; 2) new insights in the history and evolution of valuable river wetlands and 3) suggestions for the valorization and AR/VR representation of this knowledge in ecosystem management, tourism, agriculture and landscape development.