A geographic information system for stone structures management

The aims of the paper is to provide a tool for the preservation of cultural heritage of dry structures, in particular the "trulli" ("caselle" or "casedde") and "specchie", typical of the Itria Valley. The structures located in northeast of the Municipality of Martina Franca (province of Taranto, southern Italy), dated back to the 10th century, were identified and cataloged. "Trulli" represent the natural home of the scattered population, ranging from rudimentary shapes of one-room houses to more complex shapes and larger sizes, more, smaller, with more rooms, or grouped into entire neighborhoods. "Specchie", instead, represent typical artefacts present in Murgia and Salento area, passing through the Itria Valley, and made with the dry overlapping of limestone slabs coming from the rustling, the use of which is often attributable to lookout posts. In order to identify and catalog this heritage, a Geographic Information System (GIS) has been implemented structured on a relational database. In order to catalog the structures, the "Guidelines for the protection, restoration and interventions on the dry stone structures of Apulia" have been followed in the Strategic Scenario 4 of the Regional Territorial Regional Landscape Plan (PPTR) of the Puglia Region. In order to respond to the cognitive themes, the information system has been populated with metric data obtained by direct and indirect relief techniques implemented also with land-based LiDAR surveys of the most significant complexes.