Bim-Gis Integration an Innovative Tool to Enhance Urban Heritage Management in the Digital Era

Due to the great loss of the cities' ancient monuments and urban heritage resulting from either natural disasters or irresponsible human actions, it has become very urgent to find an innovative tool for restoring and conserving historical buildings in a smart and sustainable way. Furthermore, this tool can help in decision making regarding the selection of appropriate materials and intervention works. Such objectives have been realized through innovative integration of BIM & GIS to enhance urban heritage management. BIM data has been imported into the GIS environment to be visualized in 3D and analyse different scenarios for buildings' sustainable development. Data has been obtained by using Laser Scan, Photogrammetry and Surveys to help in the preservation of historical buildings and to provide useful insights into the management of these monuments. This paper discusses the development of the BIM and GIS integration which will contribute to obtain digital models for urban heritage cities and significantly to support the decision-making process in addition to developing urban planning processes for cities. Moreover, these models will form the base for the creation of digital twins that will later constitute a new form for heritage smart city. In this research paper, a new approach based on integrating BIM and GIS is used to create an opensource model using BIM 3D data (IFC) and 3D cadastral information (City GML) formats, and taking a small region in Beirut, Armenia Street at Rmeil and Medawar zones that were affected by the 2020'S POB blocks Rmeil (695,698,722) and Medawar (479, 479) as a case study. This paper also demonstrates the critical significance of civil society involvement, the multiple social and economic advantages, and enhancement of urban historical values. It is a more sustainable and equitable approach to urban heritage management, which benefits the stakeholders, the government, decision makers, urban planners, and the local community. The result of this study is a digital model that preserves the features of 3D BIM models.