Introduction

In the information age featuring digitalization, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI), public participation has become increasingly essential in all social sectors, including the conservation and management of cultural heritage worldwide. Public participation, which is used interchangeably as public engagement, public involvement, citizen participation, or public democracy in this paper, refers to “any of the several mechanisms intentionally instituted to involve the lay public or their representatives in administrative decision-making” (Beierle and Cayford, 2002, p. 6). As Kumpu (2022) notes, “civic engagement, public participation, and public involvement” all underscore the significance of “involving citizens, customers, employees, and stakeholders in the activities of governments, businesses, scientific and arts institutions, and organizations of various kinds in policy making processes” (p. 306). Pierroux et al. (2020) also remark that “at the crux of all citizen projects are the volunteers…who dedicate their senses, passions, and knowledge to ongoing research in natural, cultural, and science heritage” (p. 5). Thus, we not only understand what public participation means but also appreciate its significance.

Regarding the significance of public participation in environmental conservation, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) adopted the convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters at its fourth Ministerial Conference in Denmark from 23 to 25 June 1998 (Economic Commission for Europe Secretariat, 1998, p. 3). Specifically, concerning the significance of conserving and managing cultural heritage, UNESCO (2022) rules that “within the framework of its safeguarding activities of the intangible cultural heritage, each country shall endeavor to ensure the widest possible participation of communities, groups and, where appropriate, individuals that create, maintain and transmit such heritage so as to involve them actively in its management” (p. 12). Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the rapid development of modern civil society, the “public participation community” composed of governments, citizens, experts, and the media has initially emerged. It can be seen that the effect of public participation in the conservation and management of cultural heritage has received attention from all parties.

However, while the concept of heritage conservation continues to evolve, the content of heritage conservation is also becoming increasingly complex, and it is challenging for government-led static management to meet today’s dynamic conservation needs. In the overall management system of conservation, inheritance, and utilization of canal tangible and intangible cultural heritage in the world, the overall degree of community participation in some developing countries is not high enough, and the dominant position of communities in the intangible cultural heritage conservation system has not yet been established. In the case of China, the lack of public participation makes the conservation of the cultural heritage of the Grand Canal insufficiently supervised, coupled with its development bottlenecks and “destructive construction” pressure, resulting in the excessive commercial development of the Grand Canal heritage and serious loss of original residents (Fu, Cao and Huo, 2021). Clearly, in the conservation and management of canal cultural heritage worldwide, establishing an effective path and mechanism of public participation has become an urgent issue and responsibility of relevant government departments, academic circles, and the general public.

Since public participation in the conservation and management of cultural heritage is still in its infancy in quite a number of developing countries, lessons and experience can be drawn from those developed countries that have witnessed hundreds of years herein. Meanwhile, little has been written about the experience and implications of advanced countries in their conservation and management of cultural heritage for the sake of shedding light on other canals in the rest of the world, especially those listed on the World Heritage List. Therefore, this paper first summarizes the cultural heritage content of the Heritage Canals of the World and then elaborates on the theoretical basis and conceptual evolution of public participation. Furthermore, the significance of public participation in environmental issues is discussed. Finally, this paper investigates the experience and implications that can be learned from the Erie Canal in the US and the Rideau Canal in Canada from the four dimensions of subject, concept, content, and horizon. To this end, the following research questions (RQ) are raised:

RQ1: What experience can be drawn from the Erie Canal in the US and the Rideau Canal in Canada in their respective conservation and management of canal cultural heritage?

RQ2: What implications do the above experience hold for the bottleneck issues in the conservation and management of canal cultural heritage worldwide?

Literature review

Research on the World Heritage Canals

Globalization is creating new perspectives on social and cultural spaces, which leads to changes in the expression of culture, identity, and belonging, as well as the role of heritage today (Colomer, 2017). In the preface to the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, UNESCO (1972) emphasizes that those “parts of the cultural or natural heritage of outstanding interest…need to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole”, and “it is incumbent on the international community as a whole to participate in the protection of the cultural and natural heritage” (p. 1). The 2005 Faro Convention underscores the importance of citizens’ responsibilities in assigning heritage values, thereby introducing the concept of “heritage communities” that encompass individuals who cherish particular elements of cultural heritage and aspire to preserve and pass them down to future generations through public action (Council of Europe, 2005). Based on the information from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2022) and the research results of scholar Liu (2020), the names of the eight World Heritage Canals, their location countries, the time of inclusion in the World Heritage List, the standard serial number, and the evaluation summary of the World Heritage Committee can be listed as follows:

In Table 1, except for Iran, China, and Mexico, the other five World Heritage canals are all located in western developed countries and belong to the products of industrial civilization. According to the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention issued by UNESCO (2023), all heritage sites listed in the World Heritage List must have long-term and sufficient legislative and normative measures to ensure the conservation of the heritage sites. From the practice of its legislation, most western world heritage canals have formulated a relatively exemplary heritage conservation law system. For instance, Canada has issued the Historic Sites and Monuments Act, which has played a substantial role in the effective management of the Rideau Canal by the coordination of the Parks Canada Agency and other relevant authorities. The other four Western countries have established similar working mechanisms in their respective conservation and management of the cultural heritage of their world heritage canals. This study has singled out the Erie Canal in the US as a representative of the non-world heritage canals and the Rideau Canal in Canada as a representative of the world heritage canals for detailed explorations.

Table 1 Summary of the Cultural Heritage of the World Heritage Canals.
Full size table

At present, there are >520 canals in the world, distributed across >50 countries, involving >3000 cities along the route. Carrying the history and culture, the canals, as a unique living cultural heritage, have always been the spiritual home of people from all over the world, and have accumulated profound and long cultural deposits (Fan and Shi, 2022). As important cultural heritage globally, the canals have garnered the general attention of scholars at home and abroad with their unique historical and cultural connotations and tourism development values. In the process of conserving, managing, and developing tourism for canal cultural heritage worldwide, a series of problems have emerged. For instance, in the early development of the European canal cultural heritage, there were many problems such as single canal tourism products, lack of tourism image brand, and uneven distribution of interests (Gfeller and Eisenberg, 2016). Flemsæter et al. (2020) use the rhythm analysis to explore the rhythm of the tourist experience of the Telemark Canal in Norway and believe that the lack of connection between tourists and the host community has caused a serious disorder in local and regional economic, social, and cultural development. Through research on the Amsterdam Canal, Pinkster and Boterman (2017) have found that as more tourists arrive, the dissatisfaction of residents living in the canal area is growing, but in the face of many troubles brought by tourism, residents are unable to change the status quo. As a world heritage canal, the Grand Canal of China is a large-scale linear multi-functional cultural ecology with the largest space-time span, the highest technical content, and the most colorful content among all canals in the world. However, the awareness and concept of the general public to participate in the conservation of canal heritage is still in its embryonic stage, which cannot provide sufficient human, material, and financial support for organized development at a higher level (Chu, 2016).

Thus, we observe such issues in most developing countries as the lack of collaboration between tourists and host communities on both sides of the canals, the increasing dissatisfaction of residents living in canal areas, and the general public’s weak awareness of canal heritage protection. All this has made public participation in the conservation and management of canal cultural heritage worldwide an important topic for further research.

The theoretical basis and conceptual evolution of public participation

The theoretical basis

In the process of social governance, the public is the most critical interest subject. Therefore, public participation in the management of public affairs is not only the basic right of citizens but also an important way to realize democratic politics. Specifically, public participation refers to “the ability of individual citizens and groups to influence environmental decisions through (1) access to relevant information, (2) public comments to the agency responsible for a decision, and (3) the right, through the courts, to hold public agencies and businesses accountable for their environmental decisions and behaviors” (Cox, 2006, p. 84). Three rights can be delineated from Cox’s definition: the right to know as transparency, the right to comment as direct participation, and the right of standing as accountability (Walker, 2007). In the Internet age, the information transmission chain and transactional model of communication constructed by the mobile Internet, mobile phone SMS, blog, microblog, WeChat, APP client, etc., are profoundly changing the traditional political ecology and the logic of social operation (Ni, 2017). The term “public participation” originates from the West. Traditional public participation refers to the activities of civic voting, while public participation in the modern sense refers to the social behavior that individuals or social organizations outside the government are trying to influence the decision-making and governance of public affairs by law (Cheng, 2017). In the city-state society of ancient Greece, democracy is mainly the direct participatory management of public life. As a representative of classical democratic theory, Rousseau believes that civic participation in the political decision-making process could not only make the democratic system possible but also promote individual responsible social action and political action (Wang, 2008). In modern social governance, Spanish scholar Barnes has proposed the concept of the third generation of administrative procedures for national governance in the context of risk society. The third generation of administrative procedures emphasizes: first, to improve the quality of decision-making and implementation by enhancing the understanding of real risk and risk decisions; second, the decision with multiple subjects has a higher formal rationality for the public; third, the public’s deep participation in the process of risk decision consultation also has a declaration and educational effect. Compared with traditional administrative procedures, the third generation of administrative procedures is more open, multi-orderly, and consultative (Wu and Zhang, 2023).

In the digitalized information age of media generalization, technology empowerment makes the relationship between the communication subject and the object tend to generalize. The generalization of information production and consumption participants activates the user’s autonomy and selectivity. The direct conversion from behavioral data to content production clearly shows that user production tends to be subjective. As Castells (2018) believes, one of the reasons for the transformation of the traditional social power model to the network social power model is the “presence” of people’s spatial power, that is, the development of the Internet and wireless communication supports and strengthens the audience’s independent practice, including uploading user-created content on the Internet. In the era of digital artificial intelligence, the logic of information is user-based, and the starting point of the collection, processing, generation, and dissemination of all data is the network behavior of the public. The information sharing will be continuously improved and iterated along the logic of user needs (Lv and Huang, 2022). To give full play to the utility of network technology innovatively, the public network participants can ensure the essence and effect of their public participation from the aspects of public opinion expression, technology drive, and system guarantee. Besides, Roberts (2004) emphasizes that public participation may involve deliberation, which means that the involved parties make their decisions through dialog, exchange of ideas, and mutual learning. It can be seen that public network participation is not only a political phenomenon involving state power and interest relations but also an act of citizens carrying out political complaints and participating in social management through interactive communication and mutual learning.

As the integrator of the theory of public participation, the ladder of citizen participation proposed by the American scholar Arnstein in 1969 still has guiding significance in the digital age of technology empowered. Specifically, Arnstein (1969) divides the public participation ladder into three levels, namely, from low to high, including no participation model, representation participation model, and active participation model. It goes without saying that under the no-participation model, the public does not enjoy the right to participate or passively participate in governance activities in social governance. Under the representation participation model, public participation behavior is more of a form of amusement. And only under the active participation model, the public has gained more rights to participate, reflecting the overall participation and substantial participation effect.

Evolution of the concept of public participation

As a historical category, public participation has undergone a process of evolution, enrichment, and expansion. Because public participation encompasses a wide range of fields, its definition varies across different fields. To Friedmann (1987), public participation refers to the fact that the public participates in the decision-making process in the form of groups. Glass (1979) interprets it as a process or opportunity for the public to participate in government decision-making and planning.

In the “Internet +” era, public participation is characterized by the following features: First, in terms of the subjects, government agencies, the general public, including individuals, experts and scholars, social organizations, non-governmental organizations, and non-profit enterprises constitute the main body of public participation. Second, in terms of the concept, from the obligation standard to the right standard, citizens in modern society bear not only the duty to participate in the management of state and social affairs but also the due right. Third, in terms of the content, public participation is expanded from state affairs to social affairs. This means that the public has shifted from pure political participation to involvement in various public affairs. Finally, in terms of the horizon, it extends from real life to the virtual world. In today’s digital information age, the development of the Internet has provided an unprecedented free and equal communication public space for public participation, making it shift from “absence” to “presence”, and then through the “legal and orderly” path, to ensure the “civilized and effective” virtual public participation activities (Cheng, 2017). Therefore, public participation essentially comprises such components as the subject, concept, content, and horizon.

In short, with the drastic changes in social structure and profound changes in ideas, non-profit enterprises, the general public, and non-governmental organizations consciously participate in public governance in various forms, which is becoming a norm, and public participation is also becoming a trend in the conservation of cultural heritage worldwide. Some developed countries, such as the US and Canada, have a history of hundreds of years of protecting cultural heritage, which can provide a lot of valuable experience worth learning from. Now that the research on public participation in the conservation of cultural heritage is still in its infancy, it is not comparable in many aspects. The main body of public participation in the US and Canada is mostly the same; however, the situation is somewhat different in China. The public in the US and Canada refers to tourists, indigenous people, volunteers, related experts and scholars, and technical personnel, but the public of the Grand Canal of China refers to the canal coast residents, relevant experts, professional and technical personnel, users or consumers, and volunteers (Zhang and Qiu, 2019).

To sum up, public participation has shifted from the political field to a wider range of social public affairs such as legislation, urban planning, environmental governance, and heritage conservation. The period from 1970 to 1990 has been the embryonic stage of the public value concept of heritage. The Amsterdam Declaration, issued in 1975, has emphasized that the survival of architectural heritage depends on public attention, particularly among young people. In 1976, the Nairobi Proposal, adopted by UNESCO, encourages individuals, groups, and heritage users to contribute to heritage conservation. Since 1990, it has been the rise and application stage of the public value concept of heritage. Through the reflection of authoritative heritage discourse, people begin to explore the transformation of heritage conservation power from authority to the public, thus giving birth to the emergence of the public value concept of heritage. This concept links heritage with daily public life and pays attention to effective interaction between them, so that more people care about and protect heritage, promoting the formation of the heritage conservation force and conservation mechanism (Fu et al. 2021). This is why, in 2007, the World Heritage Committee has added “community involvement” to the original “4C” principles of credibility, conservation, capacity-building, and communication to highlight the importance of community people in heritage conservation and sustainable development, thus forming the ground and strategic framework for heritage conservation in the 21st century (Wei, 2022). In this paper, we adopt the four dimensions of subject, concept, content, and horizon of public publication as the theoretical framework.

Cultural heritage value and significance of public participation

Adopted by the Australia International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a non-governmental organization that focuses on cultural heritage conservation, the Burra Charter “provides guidance for the conservation and management of places of cultural significance” (ICOMOS Australia, 2013, p. 1). In terms of conservation principles, the Burra Charter has stressed the importance of public participation in Article 12, namely “conservation, interpretation and management of a place should provide for the participation of people for whom the place has significant associations and meanings, or who have social, spiritual or other cultural responsibilities for the place” (ICOMOS Australia, 2013, p. 5). In the conservation processes and practice, the cultural heritage value has been fully considered in ICOMOS New Zealand Charter. The cultural heritage value means “possessing esthetic, archeological, architectural, commemorative, functional, historical, landscape, monumental, scientific, social, spiritual, symbolic, technological, traditional, or other tangible or intangible values, associated with human activity” (ICOMOS New Zealand, 2010, p. 9). The conservation plans and projects about different aspects of cultural heritage value are intertwined with public participation, involving “interested parties and connected people” (ICOMOS New Zealand, 2010, p. 5). The ICCROM report means that particularly “artistic, historic, and typological value” could be taken into account as the outstanding universal value of cultural heritage (Jokilehto and Cameron, 2008, p. 11). The ICOMOS report notes that cultural heritage should also include properties “with great potential for esthetic, educational and scientific value” (Jokilehto and Cameron, 2008, p. 11). The social value of cultural heritage is shaped by the combined efforts of people and non-human factors, such as technology, through the use of social media platforms (Bonacchi et al. 2023).

Among the various aspects of cultural heritage values, authenticity is of great importance in the process of conservation. According to the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, to be of outstanding universal value, a cultural property must meet the requirement of authenticity in “design, materials, workman ship and setting” (Jokilehto and Cameron, 2008, p. 43). The Nara document provides a full discussion of the concept of authenticity and has a profound impact on modern conservation history and conservation practices (Stovel, 2008). The research on the comparative analysis of China and Scotland shows a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between authenticity and heritage conservation (Gao and Jones, 2021). Besides emphasizing material authenticity, people’s experience of authenticity is also necessary for heritage conservation and heritage management. Another essential element for identifying the significance of cultural heritage is the requirement of integrity. Integrity is defined as “a measure of the wholeness and intactness of the natural and/or cultural heritage and its attributes”, including “the social-functional integrity”, “the historical-structural integrity”, and “the visual/esthetic integrity” (Jokilehto and Cameron, 2008, p. 44). Both authenticity and integrity form the pivot of cultural heritage values and provide guidance for public participation in cultural heritage conservation.

Adopted on 25 June 1998, at the meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) held in the Danish city of Aarhus, the Aarhus Convention has come into effect on 30 October 2001. As a legally binding global instrument on environmental democracy, the Aarhus Convention gives the public more rights, including the ability to seek justice, access information, and participate in environmental decision-making (UNECE, 2023). Kumpu (2022) argues that public participation underscores the involvement of “citizens, customers, employees, and stakeholders in the activities of governments, businesses, scientific and arts institutions, and organizations of various kinds” (p. 306) in the process of policy-making. Pierroux et al. (2020) note that “this movement promoting public participation and engagement is built around the concept of deliberative democracy” (p. 51) which is “based on the equality of interlocutors and the reciprocity of their exchanges as well as a greater transparency” (p. 56).

With an eye toward communication-centered research, Norton (2017) has theorized a structuration model for environmental public participation, highlighting in particular issues of agency, “which involves ontological security and ontological competence, social systems, and various elements within duality of structure” (p. 146). Walker (2007) highlights participatory communication as a crucial strategy for public participation and stresses Collaborative Learning (CL) as an important approach in participatory communication. He uses the case of the 2006 Region 10 EPA Tribal Leaders Summit to illustrate the worksheet technique in the CL community workshops. In addition, Martin (2007) holds that increasing public participation can enhance the democratic nature, legitimacy, and quality of environmental decisions and believes that the involvement of citizens in both “how decisions are made” and “what decisions are made” are “meaningful public participation” (p. 12). Thus, public participation is seen as an essential aspect of democratic governance in a collaborative way or in other words “deliberative democracy” (Nabatchi, 2010). Accordingly, the need for collaborative efforts should give special importance to “an integrated approach among civil society organizations (CSOs), news media, research institutions, and the public” (Ittefaq and Kamboh, 2023, p. 49).

Research methods

This paper has adopted the research methods of online field observation and comparative case study. As for the online field observation, the two authors have visited and revisited the home pages of the Erie Canal in the US and the Rideau Canal in Canada, as well as the relevant websites in the forms of homepage introductions, online survey results, and official documents, etc., on and about the two said canals. In this way, we have satisfactorily collected our first-hand data. Regarding the comparative case study, Sturman (1997) defines a case study as “the exploration of an individual, group, or phenomenon” (p. 61). Similarly, but further, Hartley (2004) holds that case study has been recognized as more than merely a research method, but as a design in its own right. The case study allows researchers to explore complex issues and their underlying mechanisms by focusing on the unique characteristics and context of the studied case. Yin (2014) believes that case study research preserves “the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events” while enabling an in-depth examination of novel or ambiguous phenomena. He argues that case studies are particularly useful for exploring “what works” in real-world settings and for generating new theoretical insights. Case studies are often examined using a qualitative approach, a quantitative approach, or a mixed methodology, relying upon the cases’ accessibility and the goals of the study. In this paper, a qualitative comparative case study has been conducted to compare and contrast the main features of the two canals by the four dimensions of subject, concept, content, and horizon of public participation.

Experience and implications in the conservation and management of canal cultural heritage in the US and Canada

As a combination of water bodies and the birth of the US, the Erie Canal has transformed from the management model of “government → community → aboriginals” to “community →aboriginals→ government”, which can be a classic example. As one of the World Heritage canals, the Rideau Canal has formulated a short-term, medium-term, and long-term action plan for the strategic objectives of public participation in heritage management plan, which has achieved remarkable results. By following the rules of authenticity and integrity to cultural heritage values, the remainder of the paper explores the fruitful experience and insightful implications of public participation in the cultural heritage conservation and management of the above two canals from the four dimensions of subject, concept, content, and horizon. In the process of comparative case analysis, public participation contributes to unfolding these cultural spaces and their values and revealing their influence on conservation.

The subject

The public participants of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor (ECNHC) in the US are mainly composed of corridor residents, local communities, regional representatives, political leaders, private or non-profit heritage resource managers, as well as tourists, volunteers, non-governmental organizations, non-profit enterprises, and civil society organizations related to the Erie Canal. Under the ECNHC Act, published in December 2000, the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Committee (ECNHCC) was established. The committee consists of 27 members, 19 of whom are local people from within the scope of the ECNHC. While receiving consultations from the National Park Service (NPS), the committee is responsible for coordinating partnerships between relevant federal and state government agencies, municipalities, university research centers, nonprofit organizations, and citizens, and actively organizing their joint participation in the conservation and management of the ECNHC Act (Goodstadt et al. 2020). According to the above Act, the groups and persons of the public participants should have relevant knowledge and experience in tourism, economic and community development, regional planning, historical conservation, cultural or natural resource management, conservation, entertainment, education, or museum services. Participant diversity embodies “the multivocality of the stakeholders involved in the heritage management process in an effective way” (Pastor and Colomer, 2024, p. 226).

At the same time, the New York State Historic Preservation Plan stipulates that the ECNHC project should be open to the public from planning to implementation and evaluation. In determining the direction and scope of the corridor project, discussion and review of the plan, and the implementation and completion of management planning, there has been public participation throughout the entire process. According to statistics, the number of public participants in the ECNHC project has been increasing. Since 2000, institutions have participated in the project as partners, from fewer than 50 people at the beginning to >200 people in 2007, 400 in 2018, and 2901 formal partners as well as 5,102 informal partners in 2021. Individual public participation has increased from single digit starting in 2011 – 400 visits in 2018, and then increased to 21,803 in 2021 (National Parks Service, 2021). It can be seen that the scale of public participation in the ECNHC project has soared from 50 in 2000 to 21,803 in 2021, giving great impetus to the driving force of community cultural heritage conservation. On one hand, national and state governments have issued relevant bills and programs to legally ensure public participation in cultural heritage conservation. On the other hand, the project is open and transparent in planning, implementation, evaluation, and other relevant links, and public participation occurs throughout the process, as an essential component of the mechanism.

Likewise, the public participants in the conservation and management of the Rideau Canal in Canada are composed of individuals, experts, scholars, social organizations, non-governmental organizations, and non-profit enterprises. Parks Canada Agency is responsible for the mutual liaison and normal operation of its members. The Agency builds the natural, cultural, shipping, and community resources related to the Rideau Canal into an interdependent, coexisting, and symbiotic mechanism. In order to ensure the orderly, normal, and efficient operation of the cooperation among the members, a review team for the cultural heritage of the Rideau Canal was established in 1995. According to the operation rules and management plans for the conservation and inheritance of canal heritage, the opinions of relevant people have been extensively considered, and eight implementation rules have been formulated. Among the eight rules, the following ones concern public participation:

(4) An advisory committee should be formed immediately for each canal. It should report to the superintendent and advise on subjects of mutual concern. (5) Membership should be drawn from business and community leaders, and the group should be convened a minimum of four times a year. (6) It is suggested that the committees should be voluntary and be provided with administrative support. (7) The terms of reference for committees, their membership, tenure, and size should be developed in consultation with interest groups on each canal. (8) The advisory committee should monitor the implementation of the corridors of change report. (Keenan et al. 1995)

It can be seen that, as the competent department of the Rideau Canal, Parks Canada Agency creatively coordinates all forces, actively solicits opinions from grassroots people and tourists, and regularly updates the activities related to cultural heritage. At the same time, the original residents and stakeholders around the Rideau Canal have signed agreements with the government, so that they can actively participate in various volunteer activities involving the public. In short, the public participants of the US and Canada are much the same, mainly composed of residents of the Heritage Corridor, non-governmental organizations, non-profit enterprises, private forces, tourists, and individual volunteers. However, the former emphasizes the role of grassroots partners, while the latter relies on the phased goals of the Heritage Corridor program. Participatory processes are considered “a democratic tool in the field of cultural heritage” (Pastor and Colomer, 2024, p. 226), where democratizing participation creates spaces for negotiation and interaction among stakeholders. The participating subjects of the US and Canada reflect that democracy, especially deliberative democracy is placed in a very important position in the process of public participation. Deliberative democracy strives to empower citizens in the decision process of public participation and redirect decision-making processes toward core ethical and social principles (Bohman and Rehg, 1997). One of the key elements of deliberative democracy stipulates that the participants should represent all sectors of the community (Dryzek, 2000). The diversity of public participants and their actual decision rights in the process of legislation, regulation, and report drafting demonstrate apparent and typical deliberative democracy in the public participation of the Erie Canal and the Rideau Canal.

The concept

As the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 explained: “The preservation of our irreplaceable heritage is in the public interest so that its vital legacy of cultural, educational, esthetic, inspirational, economic, and energy benefits will be maintained and enriched for future generations of Americans” (Bsarnum et al. 2021). Based on this concept, the ECNHC Committee reiterated that heritage conservation is both a movement and a land use law. It maximizes the interests of the masses and their communities when it inspires the masses to find a relationship with historical sites, natural resources, or cultural traditions. This is the best embodiment of the trend that public participation is “changing from obligation standard to right standard, and citizens in the modern society bear not only the duty to participate in the management of state and social affairs but also the due right” (Cheng, 2017) as pointed out in the above theoretical framework.

Therefore, the formulation of the New York State Historic Preservation Plan (2021–2026) focuses on the importance of public participation, based on extensive surveys and interviews. Given the partnership and the education and publicity of the public, the plan has introduced clear goals and measures, which to a large extent guarantee the public’s right to know, participate in the government, and supervise the conservation and management of the cultural heritage. In short, to reflect the rooted opinions of the community group, academic institutions, non-profit enterprises, or local government agencies, the management of the ECNHC project adheres to the consistent and clear concept to ensure that the public has the opportunity to understand the project, actively participate in related heritage conservation work, and creatively shape the spiritual world of the present and future of New Yorkers, and even of Americans.

Similarly, as the national wealth and living cultural heritage of Canada, the Rideau Canal is not only a waterway but also a part of the identity construction of Canadians in coastal communities. To this end, the Parks Canada Agency and its liaison members, such as the Friends of the Rideau organization hope to work together “to enhance and conserve the irreplaceable charm of the Rideau Corridor and to increase public awareness and enjoyment of the Rideau Corridor and to develop strong public support for the long term well-being of the Rideau Corridor” (Thomson, 2009). To implement the above concepts, the Agency has been developing the Rideau Canal National Historic Site of Canada Management Plan since 1990 and re-evaluating and updating it every 6 years. According to the existing plan, there are the following four concepts related to public participation:

(1) Canadians, residents, and visitors cherish the Rideau Canal as a symbol of Canada’s identity and take pride in their contribution to preserving this national treasure for future generations. (3) Residents of the Canal corridor value and protect the unique cultural and natural heritage character and scenic beauty of the Canal corridor through the cooperative efforts of stakeholder groups, government agencies, public and private sector partnerships, municipal land use policies, and private stewardship. (4) The Canal’s tradition as a fully functional navigable historic waterway is maintained. (7) The values of the Rideau Waterway, Canadian Heritage River, are widely understood and protected through public and private stewardship. (8) The staff of the Rideau Canal are proud of their stewardship role and, through their actions, display leadership in resource conservation, sustainable use, and heritage presentation. (Chief Executive Officer of Parks Canada, 2005)

Thus, it can be seen that there is a consensus among Canadians on their concept, which states that by passing on the cultural heritage to future generations, they can receive education, appreciate, and identify with the splendid culture of their own country, and the cultural heritage can be more effectively valued and protected. Public participation becomes not only an asset that needs to be protected and valued but also an effective means of promoting and enhancing social-cultural identity and cohesion (Parks Canada Agency, 2016). Just as Martin (2007) remarks, meaningful public participation requires (1) access to information, education, and technical assistance; (2) possessing civic legitimacy so that public concerns can be given authentic consideration; and (3) having the real potential to affect the decision-making process because “who decides usually determines what is decided” (p. 172). In short, both the US and Canada believe that extensive public participation is the driving force for the successful conservation and management of cultural heritage in their concepts. However, the former pays more attention to the role of heritage conservation in shaping the identity of Americans, while the latter places more emphasis on the inheritance and educational function of heritage.

The content

With regards to content, first of all, there are two relevant articles in the ECNHC Act on the US side:

(1) The information on the scale, construction blueprint, management plan, and other information of this corridor (see Fig. 1) is subordinate to the NPS, but remains open and transparent and subject to public supervision at all times; (2) In the process of formulating its management plan, conservation plan, and evaluation report, the committee must extensively solicit public opinions through the form of hearings and interviews. (Goodstadt et al. 2020)

Then, among the six objectives of the ECNHC Preservation and Management Plan, there are also two relevant aspects of content: (4) The Corridor’s current and future generations of residents and visitors will value and support the preservation of its heritage; (6) The Corridor will be a “must do” travel experience for regional, national, and international visitors (Goodstadt et al. 2020). Finally, among the eight goals of the New York State Historic Preservation Plan (2021–2026), the relevant content includes: (1) Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access; (7) Partnerships; (8) Public Outreach and Education (Bsarnum, 2021). The specific implementation measures include: (1) advisory groups; (2) public meetings; and (3) round-table meetings or academic seminars. As can be seen, there have been particular articles in the relevant Federal, state, and local laws, to conserve and manage the Erie Cultural Heritage Corridor well. Thus, the scope of conservation and management is clear and specific, and the legitimacy and authority of the laws ensure the expected implementation of what has been stipulated or planned.

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
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The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor (2006).

Apart from the legal stipulations and strategic plans, there have been practical measures to promote the prosperity and development of the corridor community and cultural tourism. The Corridor Committee holds >400 cultural and tourism promotion activities every year, attracting >500,000 people to participate in various activities of the corridor heritage conservation. At least 40 venues have been set up in the corridor for residents and invited experts to display and share the special exhibits, programs, and stories related to the corridor’s cultural heritage. About 35,000 primary school students from 110 school districts have been sponsored to visit the corridor heritage sites to experience the beauty of the corridor and the cultural connotation of the heritage. At the same time, more than 400 people from Europe and the US have attended the World Canal Symposium held in Syracuse, New York, to discuss research projects and innovative arguments leading to the discovery and transformation of the canal in the world (Goodstadt et al. 2020). Public participation is explicitly stipulated in both federal laws and state government documents in the US, so whether it is a non-profit organization in a partnership, an academic group, or an individual, their respective responsibilities are very clear. As a result, they can achieve duty-bound and voluntary participation, fully reflecting the multiple attributes of obligations, rights, and responsibilities that public participation possesses.

Regarding content on the Canadian side, Canada’s Rideau Corridor (see Fig. 2) project was officially launched in 2006, aiming to develop, package, and market the cultural tourism experience along the Rideau Canal and its coastline from Ottawa to Kingston. The concept of the Heritage Corridor originated in the US by integrating special cultural resources into a linear landscape. It is an approach to regional heritage conservation, characterized by a clear economic center, thriving tourism, reuse of old buildings, and environmental improvement (Flink and Searns, 1993).

Fig. 2
Fig. 2
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Canada’s Rideau corridor (Whytock, 2013).

Authenticity is an indispensable factor when it comes to the management and conservation of cultural heritage. In September 1994, an expert World Heritage meeting was held to discuss how the authenticity of heritage canals might be best measured. An annex to the technical analysis of authenticity in the meeting report was submitted to the World Heritage Committee (UNESCO, 1994). The goal of this Rideau Corridor project is to position Ottawa, Kingston, and the entire Rideau area as a cultural destination to promote authenticity in the region, offering art, heritage, cuisine, agricultural tourism, and natural history experiences. This corridor project aims to promote the development of a diversified market for the Rideau tourism industry in the short and long term, increasing visitors and incomes for corridor suppliers and local communities. In order to provide tourists with a tourism experience that embodies the unique elements of the region of the Rideau Canal Cultural Heritage Corridor, the Parks Canada Agency and relevant organizations, including public participation groups and personnel, brainstormed and finally identified and launched seven themes closely related to the corridor:

(1) Tell regional or national stories based on the Canal; (2) experience adventures related to home stay, fishing, camping, hunting, and adventure; (3) spend various festivals of towns and villages; (4) enjoy the music and art feasts of dozens of theaters, concert halls, and dance pools; (5) visit nearly 100 art galleries, studios, and exhibition halls with strong art color; (6) enjoy the natural scenery along the canal; (7) enjoy “peaceful” trips of 16 gardens, botanical gardens, and wetland parks. (Flink and Searns, 1993)

From the above, it can be seen that the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor integrates the world’s top art and heritage experiences, focusing on exploring, integrating, and showcasing the marketable art, heritage, cuisine, agricultural tourism, and natural history of the Rideau Canal itself and its adjacent towns, villages, and nature. It also provides visitors with unique cultural tourism resources from the American continent. In summary, public participation runs throughout the entire process of drafting, modifying, implementing, and evaluating the management plan for the Heritage Corridor project between the US and Canada. Just as Cheng (2017) notes, in the present day, public participation has expanded from state affairs to social affairs, or from pure political participation to involvement in various public affairs. The above accounts of the Cultural Heritage Corridors of both the Erie Canal and Rideau Canal well match the development trajectory. However, the former tends to present a management trajectory that starts from top to bottom and then from bottom to top, while the latter is more expansive, diverse, and local.

The horizon

By horizon, we mean that public participation extends from real life to the virtual world in today’s digital information age, which makes public participation from “absence” to “presence” in an unprecedented free and equal communication public space via the Internet-connected social media (Cheng, 2017). Social media creates a new sphere of participants and provides a new platform for public participation (Papacharissi, 2010). For heritage research, the use of social media and big data helps digital heritage transform “from a more informational web to a more interactive and collaborative one” (Bonacchi, 2022, p. 9). Cameron (2021) describes digital cultural heritage as “composed, conjoined and transformed by the co-evolving interrelatedness of a broad range of actors from people to technologies, algorithms, materials, infrastructures, energy systems, ideas and so forth” (p. 129). The process of creating digital cultural heritage involves more than just human effort; it is a collaborative endeavor that encompasses a variety of actors and elements. This perspective affects the way we understand and investigate the values that are inherent in this type of heritage.

In the case of the US, firstly, the Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor has a dedicated ARCBridge database, which provides services for the collection, analysis, and management of a large amount of information and materials in the management of natural and cultural heritage in the region, especially the access to video records of experts and scholars and other promotional activities as well as the retrieval of information from corridor committee partners. Secondly, the network homepage (www.eriecanalway.org) of the corridor project regularly updates the content, images, and interactive maps of heritage conservation and management. At the same time, the home page provides an average of tens of thousands of tourists and public volunteers with detailed corridor tour resources, in-depth explanations of the historical evolution of corridor heritage, corridor heritage conservation and inheritance of the rich and colorful aspects of pictures, game interactions, audio-visual materials, and other multi-modal display content. Finally, the Corridor project also uses popular new social media and we-media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to maintain interaction and communication with various stakeholders, partners, corridor visitors, and individual public participation volunteers (Goodstadt et al. 2020).

With the assistance of the ever-updated technology, the management team of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Project can keep up with the times, fully utilizing databases, online homepages, and trendy social media to ensure smooth communication of information on corridor heritage conservation and management, and effective question-and-answer (Q&A) interaction between project management and corridor visitors. In fact, in addition to participating in activities such as on-site visits and research, attending meetings, and conducting academic exchanges, the corridor management team has also completed important tasks related to the drafting, modification, implementation, promotion, and evaluation of corridor heritage conservation and management plans through the operation of internet platforms with high efficiency. Therefore, the conservation and management of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor has been becoming increasingly standardized, clear, and systematic, presenting a management model that transitions from government → community → aboriginals to community → aboriginals → government. Through the accumulation of practical experience, the management model of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor illustrates the gradual transition from initial government leadership to the dominant roles of the residents’ committees along the canal, assisted by the government with various non-profit or extensive participation of civil organizations. Given public participation in the conservation and management of canal cultural heritage, the relevant departments of other countries have issued a series of canal management regulations and implementation measures, which to some extent reflect the importance of national competent departments to public participation. However, most of them are led by the government to promulgate various regulations and decrees, which usually make it difficult to fully implement cultural heritage conservation and management measures in the jurisdiction, due to the lack of extensive, voluntary, and systematic public participation. Therefore, the management model of the Erie Canal provides a timely and valuable practical reference.

In the case of Canada, the Parks Canada Agency (2022) released What We Heard—Management Plan Review, Public Consultation Report (hereinafter referred to as the Report), which divided the public participation in the management of the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor into two phases. The first phase is from 2016 to 2019, and the main forms of public participation include open days for cultural heritage conservation, and evaluation discussions held four times a year, cultural heritage conservation seminars attended by all stakeholders three times a year, and occasional consultation meetings with indigenous peoples to seek advice on improving the management plan of the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor. The second phase is from 2020 – 2021, during which the form of public participation mainly consisted of virtual meetings of stakeholders for public consultation, via email, social media, and other online platforms (Parks Canada Agency, 2022).

It can be seen that in the management of the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor, public participation has shifted from face-to-face contact and communication in real life to the trend of online virtual meetings and consultations, ensuring that more relevant individuals move from “absence” to “presence” and then to legal, orderly, civilized, and effective “participation” (Cheng, 2017). The following is a summary of public participation on the online platform for the conservation and management of the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor from January 2021–May 2021 (see Table 2):

Table 2 Online public participation statistics for the conservation and management of the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor (Parks Canada Agency, 2022).
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From Table 2, it can be seen that Parks Canada Agency attaches great importance to the long-term, stable, and efficient cooperation and participation of cooperating institutions, non-profit organizations, stakeholders, indigenous peoples, and the relevant public in the development and implementation of the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor Project. In just 3–4 months, over 9,145 relevant people participated in different forms of public activities through online platforms. Among them, 50% of the respondents live along the Rideau Canal, while 89.1% of the respondents are over 30 years old. Thus, it can be seen that only with broad and active public participation can the management plan and implementation goals of projects similar to the Rideau Cultural Heritage Corridor Project be implemented and become a reality. In short, both the US and Canada can fully utilize modern information technologies and social media, such as online homepages, databases, simulation seminars, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to promote public participation efficiently.

Discussion and conclusion

In this study, through online field observations and comparative case studies, we have explored the experience and implications of public participation that can be learned from the Erie Canal in the US and the Rideau Canal in Canada from the four dimensions of subject, concept, content, and horizon. To this end, we raised two research questions. As the answer to the first question: What experience can be drawn from the Erie Canal in the US and the Rideau Canal in Canada in their respective conservation and management of canal cultural heritage? The relevant experience of the US and Canada can be summarized in four dimensions: first, from the subject dimension, the public participation subjects on both sides are similar, mainly composed of Heritage Corridor residents, non-governmental organizations, non-profit enterprises, civil forces, tourists, and individual volunteers. However, the former emphasizes the role of grassroots partners, while the latter relies more on the phased goals of the Heritage Corridor plan. Second, in terms of the concept dimension, both sides firmly believe that broad public participation is the driving force for the success of cultural heritage conservation and management. However, the former focuses more on the role of heritage conservation in shaping American identity, while the latter focuses more on the inheritance and educational functions of heritage. Third, in terms of the content dimension, public participation runs through the whole process of drafting, modification, implementation, and evaluation of the conservation and management plan in both the US and Canadian Heritage Corridor projects. However, the former presents a more top-down and then bottom-up management trajectory, while the latter is more expansive, diverse, and local. Finally, regarding the horizon dimension, both countries can fully utilize modern information technologies and social media, such as online homepages, databases, simulation seminars, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to efficiently promote public participation.

As the answer to the second question: What implications do the above experience hold for the bottleneck issues in the conservation and management of the canal cultural heritage worldwide? The canals in this paper refer to those world heritage canals in developing countries such as Iran, China, and Mexico, as well as other canals mainly in less industrialized countries and regions. Since the experience has been drawn from four dimensions, the implications can be discussed accordingly about the bottleneck issues with canals worldwide. First, in the dimension of subject, most developing countries still tend to rely on the roles of governments at various levels, which have been generally top-down, one-way, and thus ineffective. With implications from both the US and Canada, on the one hand, the initial leadership role of the government proceeds to be shifted to community committees, and the composition of public participants aims to be diverse and inclusive, targeting not only residents along the canals but also visitors or even tourists from home and abroad. On the other hand, necessary national legal acts or local regulations are in place to make public participation both a duty and an obligation for the involved individuals and organizations in the conservation and management of canal cultural heritage.

Second, in the dimension of concept, cultural heritage conservation and management have constantly been updated, deepened, and refined. Therefore, the static management model led by the government has been becoming increasingly difficult to adapt to new and challenging needs. To face the challenge, both the US and Canada have successfully revitalized the role of public participation in close association with the shaping of national identity and the functioning of school education. In other words, both sides keep the concept of their respective Canal Cultural Heritage Corridors abreast with the developmental trajectories of the modern age by getting the relevant public participants organized, their positions recognized, and, most importantly, their critical voices heard and constructive suggestions taken.

Third, in the dimension of content, in most developing countries and regions, public participation is still at the initial stage; the educational content of public participation tends to be outdated, and the dissemination is often one-way with little or insufficient feedback. Although the US and Canada have adopted different approaches in this regard, one common feature here is that both sides have fully demonstrated the spirit of democratic participation and exemplary deliberation with major decisions made through dialog, exchange, and mutual learning throughout the whole process of drafting, modification, implementation, and evaluation of the conservation and management plans.

Finally, in the dimension of horizon, it is true that in the digitalized information age, the conservation and management of canals worldwide have witnessed various applications of Internet-connected media platforms, including social media or new media. Nevertheless, due to the differences in the construction of the overall management system for the conservation, inheritance, and utilization of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of canals worldwide, access to modern information technologies for public participation is surprisingly insufficient. Moreover, issues with the above three dimensions of subject, concept, and content have resulted in further obstacles to popularize up-to-date information technologies. Fortunately, the experience of the US and Canada in their extensive utilization of online homepages, databases, simulation seminars, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for public participation can shed light on this regard.

The limitations of this study are twofold: first, this study has relied on only two cases, so the findings may not be representative enough. Second, the two authors both come from China. Although they have studied and lived in the US and Canada for some years, the two authors may have revealed some subjectivity in their analyses of and discussions about the primary data. For future research, more cases of both the world heritage canals and other categories of exemplary canals can be targeted, and more authors from the host countries of the selected canals can be invited for a more representative and triangulated study.