Tourists visit the Dazu Rock Carvings, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Dazu district, southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality. (Photo/Xu Chunmao)
The International Forum on Cave Temple Conservation 2025, hosted by the National Cultural Heritage Administration, was recently held in Luoyang of central China’s Henan Province, home to the iconic Longmen Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The event brought together experts from more than 10 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Cambodia, Singapore, and Japan, alongside their Chinese counterparts.
Participants shared insights, practices and theoretical achievements in cave temple preservation, jointly exploring scientific approaches to conservation.
Jiang Siwei, director of the Academy of Dazu Rock Carvings, highlighted the complex water-related challenges facing the UNESCO World Heritage site in Dazu district, southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality. Located in the Sichuan Basin, where annual rainfall exceeds 1,000 millimeters, the site suffers from severe water infiltration that leads to salt crystallization, weathering, and surface erosion of cliff-side sculptures.
Decades of water-damage control have shown that only multidisciplinary collaboration and systematic management can truly curb such deterioration, Jiang noted. His team has adopted a multidisciplinary approach, integrating cutting-edge technologies while adhering to the principles of minimal intervention and preserving original conditions. Conservation efforts, he stressed, must be targeted and appropriate technologies should be employed.
Thanks to sustained efforts, a multidisciplinary water-damage control project at the Dazu Rock Carvings has achieved significant results. After five years of follow-up monitoring, typical seepage points on the surface of the giant sleeping Buddha statue had stopped and salt crystallization on the statue had significantly eased, Jiang said.
Photo shows tourists at the Longmen Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Luoyang, central China’s Henan Province. (Photo/Zhang Guanghui)
In recent years, the concept of "preventive conservation" has emerged as a crucial direction in cave temple protection, shifting the focus from reactive restoration to proactive preservation.
The Longmen Grottoes—representing a pinnacle of Chinese stone-carving art with more than 2,000 niches and 100,000 statues created between the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) and the Tang Dynasty (618-907)—illustrate this transformation.
Since 2012, the site has developed a monitoring and early-warning system with 19 categories and over 200 sensors tracking environmental conditions, damage to the grottoes, and visitor impact.
During extreme rainfall in July 2021, the system detected anomalies in some caves, triggering immediate protective measures that prevented large-scale damage—demonstrating the value of preventive conservation in shifting from "post-incident remediation" to "pre-emptive prevention."
Daily maintenance at the Longmen Grottoes now incorporates 3D printing technology to repair weather-related damage, ensuring both scientific accuracy and durability. The integration of digital tools has opened new possibilities for precise, individualized cultural heritage protection. In 2024, the site’s maintenance program was recognized as an exemplary heritage protection case.
Photo shows the Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Dunhuang, northwest China’s Gansu Province. (Photo/Wang Binyin)
"We will introduce artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and other advanced technologies to improve the efficiency and precision of monitoring and analysis," said Ma Chaolong, deputy director of the cave protection research and heritage monitoring center at the Longmen Grottoes Academy.
"At the same time, we will deepen multidisciplinary collaboration in archaeology, geology, materials science, and biology, study the mechanisms of damage, and develop more effective protection methods to ensure the lasting preservation of the Longmen Grottoes," Ma added.
Huang Jizhong, dean of the School of Cultural Heritage and Information Management at Shanghai University, also emphasized AI’s potential in heritage conservation. "Through machine learning, AI systems can autonomously analyze environmental data, perform non-destructive testing, monitor cultural artifacts in real time, and provide early warnings of deterioration—opening a new pathway for heritage preservation," Huang said.
Su Bomin, director of the Dunhuang Academy, stressed that digitalization has become a vital tool in cave temple protection, enhancing efficiency while ensuring permanent preservation of information.
The resource library of "Digital Dunhuang," a digital platform that provides online access to the Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Dunhuang of northwest China’s Gansu Province, and other digital platforms continuously expand the influence of Dunhuang culture.
China has developed a comprehensive approach to cave temple and heritage conservation, which has won high praise and recognition from international experts on various occasions, according to Su.
"Through exchanges with experts from different countries and disciplines, we can learn from one another and work together to protect humanity’s shared cultural heritage," Su said.
原文地址：http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0828/c90000-20358690.html