Digital Earth, a new approach for geoconservation: case study of Hexigten Global Geopark, Inner Mongolia

Abstract

Though Digital Earth (DE) has been adopted in the nature conservation, its application in geoheritage conservation is still rather limited. Geoheritage are usually distributed over extensive areas, posing great problems to actual conservation. The Digital Earth is a useful tool for systematic spatial accounts and data management. The aim of this article is attempting to apply DE in geoconservation. The Hexigten Global Geopark (HGG) in Inner Mongolia of China, which covers an area of 1783.58km², was chosen as the study area. This paper was composed of five sections. The first section, we briefly reviewed the origin of geoheritage and developments of world geoconservation, and present the justifications of adopting DE for it. In the second and third section, DE is a comprehensive, massively distributed geographic information and knowledge organization system, so we developed a theoretic frame based on it, which can be applied in geoheritage survey, resources appraisal, geoconservation planning, research and public. The fourth section, DE platforms - Google Earth and Skyline Globe Pro were as tools for geoheritage surveying and zoning of HGG. Finally, we draw conclusions that DE can be applied in geoheritage conservation limitedly today; however, excellent characteristics such VR earth, geo-library and digital atlas has huge potential for geoconservation.