Territorial heritage: A theoretical-conceptual review. Applications and difficulties of the Spanish case

Abstract

The notion of Heritage has remained within a constant historic evolution, following a cohesive approach which has led to ever more integrating concepts regarding its setting and scope. While, the development of societies requires models that allow understanding heritage as comprehensive, since it is essential to reach a holistic understanding and management of the territory, all of which leads to an interest about Territorial Heritage. In this way, the goal of this work is to make a theoretical-conceptual revision about the notion of Territorial Heritage in the case of Spain, a complex and dynamic concept that remains open. For this, the methodology has been developed in three stages and consists in a bibliographical review between the 1990s and 2020, focused on the studies available online, which has allowed identifying the existing discussion on the concept, the main topics and their difficulties. The results show that the concept of Territorial Heritage has had diverse theoretical applications like, for example in landscape, tourism, sustainable development, IT, territorial organization, design and management model. However, it continues to be a notion that requires a greater determination about the scales of application, in the universe of elements it intends to address and in their implementation under management and/or planning tools that can make its embodiment possible. Ultimately, the concept remains in development, keeping the scientific discussion alive, mainly from the technical point of view, as its practical application is still incipient.