Estimating Historically Cleared and Forested Land in Massachusetts, USA, Using Airborne LiDAR and Archival Records

William B Ouimet,Cheyenne Haverfield,Samantha Dow,Katharine M Johnson

doi:10.3390/rs13214318

Abstract

In the northeastern United States, widespread deforestation occurred during the 17–19th centuries as a result of Euro-American agricultural activity. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much of this agricultural landscape was reforested as the region experienced industrialization and farmland became abandoned. Many previous studies have addressed these landscape changes, but the primary method for estimating the amount and distribution of cleared and forested land during this time period has been using archival records. This study estimates areas of cleared and forested land using historical land use features extracted from airborne LiDAR data and compares these estimates to those from 19th century archival maps and agricultural census records for several towns in Massachusetts, a state in the northeastern United States. Results expand on previous studies in adjacent areas, and demonstrate that features representative of historical deforestation identified in LiDAR data can be reliably used as a proxy to estimate the spatial extents and area of cleared and forested land in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the northeastern United States. Results also demonstrate limitations to this methodology which can be mitigated through an understanding of the surficial geology of the region as well as sources of error in archival materials.

Highlights

English colonization of southern New England, a region in the northeastern UnitedStates, began in the early 17th century and initiated a drastic change from previous land use activities practiced by Native American groups who had inhabited the region for thousands of years [1,2,3,4]
We do expect there to be some error associated with the calculated estimates we provide based on these maps; despite this, they do represent a valuable early resource in this region that is worth investigating and comparing to other potential historical land use estimates for this time period
Relict charcoal hearth (RCH) maximum densities range from 16 relict charcoal hearths (RCHs)/km2 in Adams to 110 RCHs/km2 in Williamstown (Figure 5, Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

English colonization of southern New England, a region in the northeastern UnitedStates, began in the early 17th century and initiated a drastic change from previous land use activities practiced by Native American groups who had inhabited the region for thousands of years [1,2,3,4]. English-style agriculture was much different than what had previously been practiced in the region, and required widespread deforestation to create a landscape of bounded fields for tillage, pasture, and mowing, punctuated by managed woodlots [3,5,6]. This region had been glaciated up until ~16,000–17,000 years ago [7], and agricultural fields were typically developed on glacial till, which was full of large stones and boulders.

Methods

Results

Conclusion