Sustaining Living Heritage in the Digital Age

Confronting this defining challenge at the intersection of the humanities and contemporary realities, Professor Lam Fat Iam, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Macao Polytechnic University, has led a research team onto an innovative path that brings technology and humanistic inquiry into dialogue. Employing big data analytics and digital technologies, the team examines the spatial patterns of intangible cultural heritage across the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), while systematically comparing Chinese and Western models of cultural preservation. Their aim is to endow traditional culture with a sustainable form of digital vitality.

Mapping an Invisible Cultural Constellation

The Greater Bay Area is a repository of the Lingnan people’s accumulated wisdom, transmitted through everyday practices across generations. Scattered among cities, towns and communities, intangible cultural heritage resembles a brilliant yet often unseen “cultural constellation”, one whose distribution follows profound historical and spatio-temporal logics.

Drawing on China’s national-level ICH inventory and integrating geospatial data, the research team applied kernel density estimation and average nearest-neighbour analysis to “re-locate” heritage resources across different cities and historical periods. Cultural memories once confined to textual listings were, for the first time, visually rendered and connected into a coherent and legible cultural map.

Through spatial analysis using ArcGIS 10.8 in conjunction with Google Earth, the team systematically examined the spatial structure, distributional characteristics and influencing factors of ICH across the Greater Bay Area. Their findings identify a total of 188 national-level ICH items, with folkloric traditions constituting the largest category. These are followed by traditional dance, fine arts, theatre, craftsmanship and music, together forming the layered spiritual landscape of Lingnan culture.

Luminous Nodes within the Bay Area

The data further reveal a pronounced pattern of spatial clustering. Economically advanced cities with strong historical foundations, such as Guangzhou, Foshan, Hong Kong and Macao, emerge as core areas of high ICH concentration.

Among them, Macao stands out distinctively. Benefiting from centuries of Sino-Western cultural interaction, the city records an exceptionally high density of intangible heritage, exceeding 3,000 items per 10,000 square kilometres, the highest in the Greater Bay Area. At the same time, Guangdong Province ranks first nationwide in terms of the total number of ICH items. Historically, their distribution exhibits a “north–south–north” trajectory, echoing the rhythmic pulse of cultural movement and reflecting China’s broader transformation from agrarian civilisation to modern urban society.

To probe the deeper mechanisms shaping cultural continuity, the research team introduced the GeoDetector model, situating ICH distribution within a comparative framework spanning five historical periods. This approach enabled an evaluation of the relative influence of natural, socio-cultural and economic factors.

The findings indicate that socio-economic variables, such as population size, urbanisation level and economic development, are the primary drivers affecting the survival of intangible cultural heritage. Policy support and the intensity of cultural exchange play secondary roles, while natural geographic factors such as topography and river systems exert comparatively limited influence. To a significant extent, the fate of ICH is shaped by contemporary social structures and their transformations.

Safeguarding “Living Culture” in the Digital Age

As digital technologies rapidly permeate everyday life, the preservation of intangible cultural heritage is undergoing a profound shift. How to create new spaces for traditional skills and collective memory without immobilising their vitality has become a shared global concern.

From an international perspective, the research team systematically reviewed nearly 800 Chinese and international academic publications, employing bibliometric analysis and the CiteSpace visualisation tool to trace the evolution and focal points of digital ICH research. The results reveal marked differences between Chinese and Western approaches, both in conceptual imagination and practical implementation.

Chinese scholarship tends to emphasise the symbiosis between culture and technology, with “living transmission” at its core. Through big data and artificial intelligence, and in conjunction with community participation and oral traditions, heritage is sustained through everyday practice. Western research, by contrast, is more technology-driven, favouring tools such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and blockchain for data modelling, digital archiving and virtual exhibitions, with an emphasis on standardised management to ensure long-term preservation.

A New Paradigm for Heritage Preservation

Building on this comparative analysis, the research team posed a further question: could a more integrative pathway be forged, one that balances cultural vitality with technological precision? From this inquiry emerged a digital preservation model that interweaves technology, culture and community.

The model incorporates digital twin technology to record heritage practices with high fidelity, capturing processes, gestures and fine details, so that traditional craftsmanship gains a traceable and reproducible counterpart in the digital realm. At the heart of this system lies the “knowledge graph”. Through this framework, heritage-related information previously dispersed across platforms, ranging from the heritage items themselves and the life stories of practitioners to their geographical and historical contexts, is reorganised into a highly interconnected network.

This continuously evolving “cultural web” supports intelligent search and cross-project comparison, while opening new possibilities for education, research and public engagement. Intangible heritage thus transitions from being a static “cultural specimen” archived in records to an interactive, extensible and dynamic intelligent cultural system.

A Digitally Driven Cultural Future

Whether in the East or the West, the ultimate goals of digitalising intangible cultural heritage remain consistent: preservation, transmission, dissemination and the enrichment of public cultural experience. When technological rationality aligns with humanistic values, digital innovation becomes a powerful catalyst for cultural renewal, opening new pathways for global dialogue on heritage.

Echoing the United Nations’ goal of building sustainable cities and communities, the MPU research team continues to use digital humanities as a bridge, revitalising generations of accumulated wisdom within creative industries and the tourism economy. Through technological intervention, intangible cultural heritage is not only preserved but re-embedded into contemporary life, stepping confidently onto the world stage.