Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management ISSN 1648–6897 / eISSN 1822-4199 2020 Volume 28 Issue 4: 157–173 https://doi.org/10.3846/jeelm.2020.13785 SYSTEMATIC METHOD FOR MONITORING AND EARLY-WARNING OF GARDEN HERITAGE ONTOLOGY USED IN THE SUZHOU CLASSICAL GARDEN HERITAGE Jie ZHAO1, Rikun WEN1*, Wen MEI2 1School of Landscape Architecture, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forest University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, PR of China 2Suzhou World Cultural Heritage Classical Garden Protection and Supervision Center, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, PR of China Received 05 April 2020; accepted 13 October 2020 Highlights X This article refines monitoring indicators and evaluation standards for garden heritage ontologies. X Quantifies monitoring data of garden heritage ontologies. X Specifies early-warning gradation which can exhibit further damage level for garden heritage. X Constructs garden heritage monitoring and early-warning grading model based on fuzzy cluster analysis. X Obtains early-warning gradation results for architecture, ancient tree, rock, water and furnishing heritage. X Spatial distribution map of early-warning grade was obtained. Abstract. Taking garden heritage ontologies as the object, this paper explores monitoring and early-warning methods of heritage based on fuzzy cluster analysis. A monitoring and early-warning system for garden heritage ontologies is designed and consists of monitoring indexes, a monitoring program, monitoring data collection, application of an early-warning grading evaluation model and conclusion of early-warning grading. Taking the Suzhou classical garden heritage as an ex- ample, it can be concluded that the systematic method can integrate various qualitative and quantitative index values and collectively reflect the overall state of garden heritage ontologies as well as match a heritage monitoring ontology with an early warning grade by calculating the data similarity matrix, membership matrix, fuzzy similarity matrix, fuzzy equivalent matrix and cut matrix. Five kinds of heritage ontologies with a total of twenty-seven heritage monitoring indicators are applied in the model and then be matched with MATLAB software to obtain accurate early-warning results. When types of heritage ontology need to be expanded, the heritage is further refined, or the heritage is more comprehensive, this method is applicable. Keywords: garden heritage, monitoring and early warning, Suzhou classical garden, early-warning gradation, systematic method. Introduction the Venice Charter (International Council of Monuments Garden heritage refers to the natural and cultural heritage and Sites [ICOMOS], 1964) to the Convention Concern- that is strongly related to the construction and aesthetic ing the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Her- activities of the landscape, including natural and cultural itage (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural heritage sites that have been registered in national and Organisation [UNESCO], 1972), the protection of garden world heritage lists, and the tangible heritage protected heritage has gone through the process of ideological be- by law but not yet registered on the heritage lists, such as ginning, protection principles and consensus formation. traditional gardens, cultural landscapes, and scenic spots The Charter of the International Council on Monuments (Li & Yuan, 2014). From the Athens Charter (Congrès and Sites adopted in Moscow (ICOMOS, 1978) explicitly International d’Architecture Modern [CIAM], 1933) and defined valuable historical parks as heritage sites under *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unre- stricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 158 J. Zhao et al. Systematic method for monitoring and early-warning of garden heritage ontology used in the Suzhou... protection for the first time. The Florence Charter (ICO- Zhang pointed out difficulties and significant features in MOS & International Federation of Library Associations monitoring heritage sites in China (Zhang, 2012). Zhu [IFLA], 1981) clearly defined the concept of a historical conducted research into monitoring technologies (Zhu garden. et al., 2010). Jiang focused on dynamic monitoring the- In 1992, the concept of cultural garden heritage was ory, indicators, and technologies based on RS, GIS and proposed (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 1992). The GPS technology (Jiang, 2010). Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of World The early warning of garden heritage protection is to Heritage Convention (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, analyze and evaluate the garden heritage and its external 1992) identified park landscapes as landscapes intention- space status in a certain period, then forecast, determine ally designed and built by humans and stated that they are the space condition and change trend, speed, etc., fore- often (but not always) related to religion or other monu- cast the space-time scope and danger degree of abnormal ments or groups of buildings. As one theme of cultural conditions, and put forward warning information and cor- garden heritage, garden heritage is an important part of responding preventive measures according to the specific cultural garden heritage. At present, there are 27 world situation of abnormal changes (Yang et al., 2015). Early heritage sites with a garden theme (Wu et al., 2016). China warning is the ultimate goal for monitoring. Early warning has 5 of these sites. They are the Chengde Mountain Re- in the field of cultural heritage did not officially become sort (1994), Suzhou Classical Gardens (1997, 2000), Sum- a responsibility of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre mer Palace (1998), Beijing Royal Altars-Temple of Heaven until 1994. Bahraminejad proposed an early warning sys- (1998) and Hangzhou West Lake (2011) (Li & Yuan, 2014; tem and optimization method that can make up for defi- Wu et al., 2016). In addition to world heritage sites, China ciencies in protection and management of heritage sites also has a kind of garden heritage with cultural relics pro- (Bahraminejad et al., 2018). Leng studied the protection tection. At present, the list consists of 537 garden heritage of historical villages based on the fuzzy analytic network sites (Wu et al., 2016). The principles for conservation of process (F-ANP) (Leng, 2011). Wei studied ancient trees heritage sites in China states that cultural landscape is a in the Humble Administrator’s Garden in Suzhou and pro- kind of cultural relic and historic site with living charac- posed early warning levels and protection measures for teristics, and it is in a process of constant change. Suzhou ancient trees (Wei et al., 2010). Yang proposed the object, Classical Gardens have become weak and vulnerable as content, method and effect of early warnings for garden time has gone by. Improper use and erosion by natural heritage sites (Yang et al., 2015). forces often cause accidental damage to the garden. There- In summary, the international conventions and herit- fore, using scientific methods to explore the classical gar- age protection charters indicate the recognition of garden den heritage monitoring and early-warning system is an heritage protection and put forward the basis and guide- important component of current heritage conservation lines for garden heritage protection. Many studies have re- research (Feilden & Jokilehto, 2008). vealed techniques, monitoring and early-warning methods The UNESCO World Heritage List contains more for garden heritage protection. However, there have been than 1,000 cultural, natural and mixed heritage sites, too many qualitative discussions in the past, and quan- many of which are threatened today (Cigna et al., 2018). titative studies are still lacking. Compare to community Levin pointed out that 54 UNESCO World Heritage Sites participation in cultural heritage management (Li et al., are in danger, of which 40% are in the Middle East (Lev- 2020) research in this paper concerned government-led in et al., 2019). To reduce the risk of conflict, preventive monitoring and applied a new method to work with mon- protection is an effective method for heritage site protec- itoring data in which comprise five heritage ontologies, tion (Eken et al., 2019). UNESCO has proposed to carry four criteria and 27 indicators. Not only analyzing species out world heritage monitoring for 20 years, and requires diversity (Cheryl et al., 2018), assessing the heritage value monitoring sites to provide monitoring reports every 6 of scenic, natural and cultural (Carolina et al., 2018), it years (Zhou, 2015). In 2002, the United Kingdom intro- focused on architectural heritage, ancient tree heritage, duced the Draft Indicators for World Heritage Monitor- rock heritage, water heritage and furnishing heritage, pur- ing (Zhang, 2011). In 2009, UNESCO proposed the con- sued improvement of heritage management in accordance cept of risk management for cultural heritage monitor- with monitoring and early-warning results obtained. The ing (Song, 2013). A risk assessment system for cultural research revealed that active participant (Hotimah et al., heritage protection in Italy began (Arborea et al., 2014). 2015), especially monitoring heritage becomes absolutely Both Canadian