GIS System for the Hegra Conservation Project, Saudi Arabia. 2021/2023

The Hegra Conservation Project is a landmark initiative under the aegis of the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. This ambitious project, undertaken by Estia—an Italian company renowned for excellence in restoration—aims to study and preserve the magnificence of the archaeological site of Hegra, one of the jewels of AlUla County.
ES is participating in the project as a subcontractor to Estia Restauri, handling all aspects related to the management and archiving of the geospatial and cataloguing data produced during the project.
In particular, drawing on its expertise in the design and implementation of geographic information systems for cultural heritage, ES carried out the following activities:

• Technical support to the RCU for the analysis, development and population of its geographic database.
• Development of a system for on-site inspections, deterioration mapping and the compilation of survey records using mobile devices, with centralisation of the collected data in a GIS system comprising a georeferenced database and tools for data retrieval, visualisation and analysis.
• Implementation of data-alignment procedures, involving remote data collection and subsequent centralisation.
• Ongoing data-quality control to ensure data integrity and consistency throughout all phases of the project.

During the first phase of the project, the customisation of desktop GIS projects led to the creation of efficient working tools. These enabled the use of vector data and textual attributes to define the condition of each individual asset, map its deterioration and graphically represent the characteristics of the inspected facades.