Protected Sites are regarded as relevant data by the INSPIRE Directive, that includes them in the Annex I. The Protected Sites data specification has been developed by the Thematic Working Group on Protected Sites, focusing mainly on natural areas, connected to environmental data specifications under development in Annex III. Since Cultural Heritage data are included in the Protected Sites theme, guaranteeing their inclusion in the Directive is priority. Thus, the Cultural Heritage Application Schema presented in this paper is built as an interoperability framework for this particular kind of Protected Sites. It aims to offer a comprehensive support for heritage data publication via Spatial Data Infrastructures. The main issue that we try to tackle through this schema is interoperability, as long as Cultural Heritage data are geographical data, and also within the thematic scope of cultural heritage data. Spatial data interoperability is built upon conformance with the main ISO 19100 and INSPIRE documents, while we rely on other standards, such as CIDOC – CRM and Dublin Core to grant interoperability among other kind of cultural heritage data. The schema we put forward is designed as an extendable, generic and interoperable framework, an implementation basis for heritage spatial data with a known location, boundary and area, as stated in the Protected Sites Data Specification. The Protected Sites data specification is focused mainly on natural areas, Cultural Heritage being considered only in a superficial way. Thus, despite the fact that it offers a basic framework to implement interoperability on these data, some Cultural Heritage datasets would be left apart and others would not be correctly incorporated if taken as it comes. The main core of legislative data regarding protected heritage data finds its way within the Protected Sites class, with some minor adjustments, but troubles arise when trying to incorporate real – world entities, for there is no further development planned in any of the other INSPIRE Annexes. Hence the necessity to work on the legal definition of Cultural Heritage Protected Sites and, at the same time, on their thematic nature. We hope that this work might be helpful for a future development of Cultural Heritage SDIs in an interoperable framework based on OGC Standards, taking into account the spatial nature of this specific kind of Protected Sites Data to enhance their role within territorial governance, to help managing their protection and to bring them closer to the general public.

Many individuals and organizations have contributed in this work: Juan M. Vicent (CCHS-CSIC) and Isabel del Bosque (CCHS-CSIC) as coordinators, Alfonso Fraguas, Antonio Uriarte, Juan Luis Pecharromán and María Ruiz del Árbol from the Instituto de Historia (CSIC), Emilio Abad from the Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia, Francisco García Cepeda from the Dirección General del Catastro, Marta Criado from the DMS Group, Pilar Chías Navarro and Tomás Abad Balboa from the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Miguel Lage Reis-Correia from the Fundación Las Médulas – Junta de Castilla y León, Javier Márquez Piqueras from the IDR – Junta de Castilla La Mancha, Victorino Mayoral from the Instituto de Arqueología de Mérida – CSIC, Pastor Fábrega-Álvarez and César Parcero Oubiña from the Incipit – CSIC, Carlos Fernández Freire and Esther Pérez Asensio from the Unidad de SIG – CSIC, José Julio Zancajo from the Universidad de Salamanca and Antonio Vázquez Hoenhe, Arantza Respaldiza Hidalgo and Mercedes Farjas Abadía from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

This work has been partially supported by the projects Investigación en tecnologías para la valoración y conservación del Patrimonio Cultural (CONSOLIDER INGENIO 2010 CSD2007-00058) and Definición de un modelo para la representación de aspectos espaciales del Patrimonio (National R&D Plan), and developed by a multidisciplinar team of experts in heritage, geomatics and other fields, gathered under the Spanish SDI Working Groups.

Presentación oral realizada en el marco de la INSPIRE CONFERENCE 2012, celebrada en Estambul del 23 al 27 de junio de 2012. Se incluye un archivo pdf con la presentación de diaposivas exhibida durante la conferencia.