Use of Late 18 th and Early 19 th Century Cadastral Data to Estimate Past Forest Cover Change - a Case Study of Zawoja Village

Abstract

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 Using the unpublished data extracted from cartographic materials, we also show this latter part of long term forest cover changes, thereby presenting an example of forest transition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.