Understanding of the Cultural Heritage Landscape from Percetion to Reality

Obviously, conservation of a historical site requires understanding of its actual values and adapting planners’ and managers’ perception to such real values. It is helpful to planners and managers to recognize landscape values of cultural heritages towards appropriately conservation as well as providing these sites as tourist attractions. For better understanding of cultural heritages, it is important to convey the actual value of the landscape to the visitors.
This paper is about landscape values of Shushtar’s Watermill Site and perceptions of such values. The city of Shushtar was one of the key centres of Khuzestan in Sassanid era and it had a special position in mentioned region. This historical city includes valuable relics and monuments from the ancient times. The Historical Hydraulic System is the most famous historical site located in Shushtar, which has been registered on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites since 2009, as Iran’s 10th cultural heritage. After recognizing characteristics of cultural and natural landscapes and the existing definition, as well as functions and cultural values of the site in different periods of the history, it can be inferred that Shushtar’s Watermill Site is a cultural landscape and it falls into designed landscape category introduced by UNESCO.