Pieter-Jan Lachaert

The long-term daily Central Belgium Temperature (CBT) series (1767-1998) and early instrumental meteorological observations in Belgium

This article presents the problems and results of constructing the Central Belgium Temperature series, a homogeneous multi-site instrumental daily maximum and minimum temperature series which has been made for the time period 1767 to the present. First, an outline of the history of early meteorological observations in Belgium is presented. The long-term daily observations which were subsequently used in the construction of the Central Belgium Temperature series received special attention. The series consists for a larger part of high quality and well documented daily temperature readings by Adolphe Quetelet, started in 1833 at the Royal Observatory of Brussels, Belgium and continued in 1913 under the auspices of the autonomous Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium. For the period before 1833, several long-term climatological series carried out by natural scientists, physicians, etc., have been retroactively incorporated into the existing series using linear regression techniques based upon observations at the two sites for overlapping periods. Several series have been discovered during the search for meteorological manuscripts and publications by the two Belgian IMPROVE teams.

Greens, Commons and Shifting Power Relations in Flanders

More than 25 years ago, at the 1975 meeting of PECSRL in Warsaw, the Belgian scholars Claude and Dussart presented the results of their research on the dries, villages in Inner Flanders (Dussart et al. 1975). At the PECSRL session in 2000, the late R. Knaepen presented the results of his studies done concerning the commons of the Campine area, in the eastern part of Belgium (Knaepen 1994; Knaepen et al. 2002). This topic has remained in focus at several departments of Ghent University (Belgium), and various inventories have been drawn up over time (e.g., Thoen 1987; Vinck 1997; Van Der Haegen 1999). In 2002, an article published by Martina De Moor concentrated attention on the commons in the Campine area and in West Flanders (De Moor 2002).