Scientific research about geological and geomorphological heritage recently proved to be the base of new opportunities for tourism. The peculiar case of urban landscape analysis offers new frontiers to the traditional urban cultural tourism. The tourism offer based on natural aspects of urban areas is described in this paper thanks to three examples of urban geotourism tools: GeoGuide Lausanne, TOURinStones and GeoGuide Rome mobile applications. Each case focuses on the transfer of geoscientific knowledge from scientific research to the "tourist" content, with the innovative support of the mobile application technology. The apps contribute to the promotion of the links between cultural and geological heritage, which is the goal of urban geotourism: to convey the message that substrate profoundly influences the culture that is established on it. The mobile application technology has many strengths for interpretation, e.g. by overlaying images or adding sounds and videos, which allow the visitors to discover landforms now covered by buildings and infrastructures; it has also technical strengths, such as looking for additional information and organizing the city visit at home or to re-experience it after the trip. The apps do not have any impact on the field, they are concise, easy to read, interactive and funny. The public understanding of science is very important, it helps enhancing the role of the researchers and the impact of their work on the society and the daily lives of citizens. In this context GeoGuide apps are useful to transfer knowledge and make it usable to people. Keywords geoheritage, urban geotourism, tourist guide, mobile application, knowledge transfer tool, urban landscapes.
The Piemonte mountains surrounding the city of Torino comprise a wide variety of rocks, characterized by a multitude of minerals, structures and colors. The Alps, for their long and complex history, offer a wide variety of ornamental stone used in the town, over the centuries, for both aesthetic and structural reasons. TourinStone is an application for the mobile phone that allows geotourists to walk in the center of Torino, where the visitor can be find Alpine rocks used in palaces and historical monuments as witness and tangible symbols of the city. The application consists of twenty-six historical sites of interest in each of which ornamental stones of historical and scientific interest can be observed in detail. The sites are grouped in four thematic itineraries through which the user can discover the city from the cultural and architectural point of view. By a numbered list of the stones used in all described monuments the user can access specific data on each rock including quarry location, petrographic description and utilization in Torino. The mobile application can be downloaded free from the App Store or Google Play respectively for Apple and Android devices. Response to Reviewers:We have accepted the suggestions advanced by both referees. In particular we have valued the language corrections of Ref.#1 and we have checked the manuscript to correct mistakes
Due to the renewed interest for sites of geological interest, both in nature conservation and tourist sectors, numerous regional and national geosite inventories have been carried out in several countries during the last two decades. For this purpose, various assessment methods have been developed and published. The issue of the representation of the results of inventories-in particular, the mapping system, the question of updating data-remains open. Moreover, if in the field of nature conservation, practitioners are used to working with GIS, it is not the case in the tourist sector where data must be delivered to the users in open-access and easy-touse formats. This paper discusses what opportunities of web mapping methods and techniques there are in the domain of geoheritage assessment and promotion. A web mapping application in Google Maps application programming interface (API) framework is proposed to disseminate the results of geosite inventories carried out in Switzerland both at national and regional scales. The interest of the proposed application is discussed according to three main criteria: mapping interests and limitations, management purposes and interpretive issues.
Since the 1990s, the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali di Torino houses the ornithological collection formerly belonging to the Zoological Museum of the University of Turin (MZUT). This collection includes about 20,500 specimens, mostly dating from the second half of the nineteenth century or early twentieth. The high number of type-specimens gives it great historical and scientific significance. The types have been described mainly by Tommaso Salvadori (171 taxa, 282 specimens) and, to a lesser extent, by other Italian authors such as Enrico Festa, Filippo de Filippi, Orazio Antinori, Enrico H. Giglioli or by foreign authors as John Gould, Eduard Rüppell, Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Philip L. Sclater, Robert Swinhoe.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.