Krzysztof Ostafin

Uncertainty in Historical Land-Use Reconstructions with Topographic Maps

Abstract The paper presents the outcomes of the uncertainty investigation of a long-term forest cover change analysis in the Polish Carpathians (nearly 20,000 km2) and Swiss Alps (nearly 10,000 km2) based on topographic maps. Following Leyk et al. (2005) all possible uncertainties are grouped into three domains - production-oriented, transformation- oriented and application-oriented. We show typical examples for each uncertainty domain, encountered during the forest cover change analysis and discuss consequences for change detection. Finally, a proposal for reliability assessment is presented.

Coastal Landscape Dynamics in NE Sørkapp Land (SE Spitsbergen), 1900–2005

Abstract This report presents the current dynamics of the natural environment and landscape in a part of the mountainous southeastern Spitsbergen coast on the Barents Sea in 1900–2005. Its current state substantially varies from what is shown on recently published topographic maps actual for 1936. The physico-geographical mapping and GPS survey were the basic field methods of recognizing the area, supplemented by remote sensing. Each landscape component, except for the Pre-Quaternary bedrock, has been changed primarily as a direct or indirect result of the current warming. The most dramatic landscape transformation has been connected with the formation of a fjord, the abandoning of the lower parts of valleys by tidewater glaciers, and the alteration of the coastline. This transformations pace has been increasing visibly over the last few decades. The landscape became more diversified. There is a positive feedback in the process of life expansion in the study area: the processes of animal colonization and plant succession stimulate each other.

Forest cover change or misinterpretation? On dependent and independent vectorisation approaches

The paper compares the influence of dependent and independent vectorisation approaches on forest cover change analysis, with a hypothesis that the former reduces the number and area of sliver polygons. Independent vectorisation is based on separate creation of the vector layer for each period in the time series, while the dependent is based on modification of the successive vector layers. The comparison is based on three map sets – the second Austrian military survey ( 1861/1862 ), a Polish military map ( 1936 ) and a Polish topographic map ( 1979 ) and carried out in Szczawnica commune located in the Polish Carpathians. The results show that the overall differences between the two vectorisation approaches are low at the commune level, but the local differences, within the grids 500 × 500 m might be up to 30 – 40 %. Statistical analysis did not indicate any considered variable directly responsible for the differences, confirming that it is a randomly distributed phenomenon. The results show also that the dependent vectorisation cannot eliminate the existence of sliver polygons, but their number may be limited when compared to the independent approach. As the dependent vectorisation is much more time efficient, we conclude that it might be a better solution in the situation when manual vectorisation is the most appropriate method of land use data acquisition from historical maps.

Use of late 18 th and early 19 th century cadastral data to estimate past forest cover change – a case study of Zawoja village

Previous studies concerning forest cover changes in the Polish Carpathians did not formerly extend further than the mid-19 th century, because of the lack of detailed cartographic materials. Earlier forest changes, especially their magnitude but sometimes even their direction ( deforestation, stabilisation or afforestation ) are poorly investigated. This paper shows how to extend a temporal sequence of forest cover data for Zawoja village in the Polish Carpathians using non-cartographic data from the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. We used non-cartographic data from the first Austrian cadastral system, the so-called Josephinian cadastre, carried out in the 1780s, and its revision done in 1819 – 1820. These data were compared with the stable cadastre and its two revisions ( 1844 – 1898 ) and mostly later cartographic materials ( 1861 – 2014 ). Thematic coherence of cadastral and cartographic data, conformity of Zawoja village boundaries in the analysed period, as well as errors of the earliest cadastral measurements were investigated. The data acquired in the 1780s and 1819 – 1820 enabled the estimation of the productive and non-productive forest area as well as the area of pastures and meadows partly covered with forest. Though possible measurement errors could add up to 7 % of the total village area, the data clearly document the end of the deforestation phase ongoing in Zawoja until the first half of the 19 th century, and later relative stabilisation of forest cover during the second half of that century. Data from the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries indicate a change trend opposite to the later, frequently described stabilisation of forest cover and progressive afforestation. Using the unpublished data extracted from cartographic materials, we also show this latter part of long term forest cover changes, thereby presenting an example of forest transition in the Polish Carpathians.

Historical land use dataset of the Carpathian region (1819–1980)

ABSTRACT We produced the first spatially explicit, cross-border, digital map of long-term (160 years) land use in the Carpathian Ecoregion, the Hungarian part of the Pannonian plains and the historical region of Moravia in the Czech Republic. We mapped land use in a regular 2 × 2 km point grid. Our dataset comprises of 91,310 points covering 365,240 km2 in seven countries (Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and Romania). We digitized three time layers: (1) for the Habsburg period, we used maps of the second Habsburg military survey from years 1819–1873 at the scale 1:28,800 and the Szatmaris maps from years 1855–1858 at scale 1:57,600; (2) The World Wars period was covered by national topographic maps from years 1915–1945 and scales here ranged between 1:20,000–1:100,000; and (3) the Socialist period was mapped from national topographic maps for the years 1950–1983 at scales between 1:25,000–1:50,000. We collected metadata about the years of mapping and map sources. We used a hierarchical legend for our maps, so that the land use classification for the entire region consisted of 9 categories at the most general level and of 22 categories depending on the period and a country.

Long-term changes of the Wildland-Urban Interface in the Polish Carpathians

The Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) is the area where houses and wildland vegetation meet or intermingle, which causes many environmental problems. The current WUI is widespread in many regions, but it is unclear how the WUI evolved, especially in regions where both houses and forest cover have increased. Here we compared WUI change in the Polish Carpathians for 1860 and 2013 in two study areas with different land use history. Our western study area experienced gradual forest increase and housing growth over time, while the eastern study area was subject to a shock due to post-war resettlements, which triggered rapid reforestation. We found that in both study areas WUI extent increased from 1860 to 2013 (41.3 to 54.6%, and 12.2 to 33.3%, in the west and east, respectively). However the causes of WUI growth were very different. In the western study area new houses were the main cause for new WUI, while in the eastern study area forest cover increase was more important. Our results highlight that regions with similar current WUI cover have evolved very differently, and that the WUI has grown rapidly and is widespread in the Polish Carpathians.

Forest cover change and secondary forest succession since 1977 in Budzów commune, the Polish Carpathians

One of the most widespread land cover change processes in European countries is the increase in forest cover. Forest expansion on abandoned agricultural land has played a major role in marginal mountain areas since World War II, and especially affected the post-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This study aimed at mapping forest cover change and forest succession in one of the communes of the Polish Carpathians ( Budzow ) over two time periods : 1977 – 1997 and 1997 – 2009. We identified rates of agricultural land abandonment and forest succession and assessed the dynamics of the process using aerial photographs, orthophotomaps as well as cadastral and census data. The results showed that Budzow commune experienced an expansion of forest cover from 40% in 1977 to almost 45% in 2009, and a significant increase in forest succession from 1% in 1997 to 10% in 2009, at the expense of agricultural land area ( 54% in 1977 and 40% in 2009 ). If the trend is widespread over the Polish Carpathians, the real forest cover may be much higher than follows from statistical data.

Introduction: Study Area and Its Environmental Recognition

Sorkapp Land, and especially its western part, has been chosen as a destination of Jagiellonian University scientific expeditions since 1980. Geographic locations and natural environmental features make this isolated and mountainous region unique in the European Arctic. This southern Spitsbergen peninsula constitutes a land wedge (which narrows to the south) between different seas. Its eastern coast is affected by the cold sea current, whereas the western one is under influence of warm Atlantic water. These factors help generate a great deal of variety in the peninsula’s natural environment: from the western and southern lowlands overgrown by tundra with herds of reindeer to the glacial mountainous Arctic desert in the interior and east. Therefore, the peninsula is an excellent study area featuring all the relationships between the different components of the natural environment. They result in an unusually diverse, completely natural, and almost primeval landscape: glacial and periglacial, mountainous and low-lying, inland and coastal. These basic landscape types are internally differentiated: for example, fjord-type coastal landscape and open-ocean–type coastal landscape. Traces of the Pleistocene ice sheet may be discovered in the contemporary landscape. In addition, the reaction of this environment to climate warming can be readily noted due to relatively rapid climate fluctuations since the 1980s. New climate phenomena and associated trends can be easily observed in this area.

Environmental and Landscape Changes

Climate changes in western Sorkapp Land mirror global fluctuations. The Little Ice Age ended with a cold period in the 1890s. A warm contemporary period began in the early twentieth century. Afterwards, secondary cold and warm climate fluctuations occurred. The most recent fluctuation, since the 1980s, shows a significant warming trend. The mean annual temperature increased by almost 2 °C and the mean annual total precipitation increased by about 60 mm since the 1980s (according to data of the station located 10 km from the study area). Almost all the snow patches melt during the warmest and sunniest summer seasons. The so-called active layer of permafrost had doubled at sites below 100 m of altitude from the 1980s to 2008. Almost all Sorkapp Land glaciers have undergone a continuous recession since the beginning of the twentieth century. Two processes are important for glacier recession: decrease in snow accumulation in firn fields due to the summer thawing of a larger snow mass, and summer thawing of ice on the surface of glacier tongues, which results in a decrease in ice thickness. Thus, the equilibrium-line altitude of a glacier shifts upward, reducing the accumulation zone. Hence, the entire surface of the glaciers undergoes lowering each year, which results in a decrease in their volume and their overall retreat. Since the 1980s, an acceleration of the glaciers’ recession has occurred, causing great changes in landforms and Quaternary. New accumulation landforms appeared in the front of glaciers and around glacier tongues in their marginal zones, that is, on lowlands and valley floors abandoned by glaciers and in their forefields situated below the marginal zones (i.e., beyond the former extent of the glaciers). New erosion landforms, apart from proglacial river incisions, prevail on the steep slopes of valleys and mountain massifs. The cliffs of tidewater glaciers undergo the quickest retreat. Karst processes have intensified due to higher air temperatures and larger quantities of flowing water. Surface and underground streams carry much more water today than in the 1980s. However, the soil is generally drier on the lowlands between the streams today due to the deepening of the active layer above the permafrost. The river and lake network changed the most due to glacier recession. Ice-dammed lakes disappeared due to the recession of glaciers. On the basis of repeated vegetation mapping, significant changes in composition and extent of several plant communities were documented. Decrease in species diversity, leading to a more uniform vegetation, has been observed mainly in dry habitats. In some cases boundaries between plant communities that were clear in the 1980s have now vanished. Fruticose epigeic lichens, such as Flavocetraria nivalis, Cladonia rangiferina, and other species of Cladonia have disappeared from the most part of the study area and their extent is now limited to steep rocky slopes. In some communities increase in abundance of Salix polaris was recorded. The main cause of vegetation changes in Sorkapp Land is the rapidly growing reindeer population in the area.