Measuring urban heritage conservation: theory and structure (part 1)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out a proposal for an indicator of conservation (Indicator of the State of Conservation – Isc) to assess the state of conservation of urban heritage sites. It was designed as a monitoring instrument to perform two tasks: to evaluate how the conservation of an urban site evolves over time (internal performance analysis); and to compare cities’ conservation performance (comparative performance analysis). Design/methodology/approach – The indicator was developed using the theoretical approach. The paper presents the main concepts used as key performance indicators, that is, significance, integrity and authenticity and how they contribute to meeting the objective of attaining the sustainable conservation of heritage sites. Findings – The Isc indicator is expressed as a function of three key performance indicators (KPIs) of significance, integrity and authenticity that are assessed by surveying the opinion of the main stakeholders involved with the conservation management of sites. The structure of the Isc is fixed and the same for all sites, independent of their geographical location. However, the structure of the KPIs can be adapted to express the social composition of stakeholders and to use the capabilities and resources of the management institutions of the sites. Practical implications – The indicator may be used for monitoring the state of conservation of the World Heritage Urban Sites. Social implications – The indicator allows a non‐biased evaluation of the conservation process of the World Heritage Urban Sites. Originality/value – The paper presents the Indicator of the State of Conservation (Isc), which is the first indicator of this type.