Abstract
As an important data source for historical geography research, toponyms reflect the human activities and natural landscapes within a certain area and time period. In this paper, a novel quantitative method of reconstructing historical river networks using toponyms with the characteristics of water and direction is proposed. It is suitable for the study area which possesses rich water resources. To reconstruct the historical shape of the river network, (1) water-related toponyms and direction-related toponyms are extracted as two datasets based on the key words in each village toponym; (2) the feasibility of the river network reconstruction based on these toponyms is validated via a quantitative analysis, according to the spatial distributions of toponyms and rivers; (3) the reconstructed historical shape of the river network can be obtained via qualitative knowledge and geometrical analysis; and (4) the reconstructed rivers are visualized to display their general historical trends and shapes. The results of this paper demonstrate the global correlation and local differences between the toponyms and the river network. The historical river dynamics are revealed and can be proven by ancient maps and local chronicles. The proposed method provides a novel way to reconstruct historical river network shapes using toponym datasets.
Highlights
Researchers are often faced with a deficiency of data sources when investigating the historical evolution processes of various landscapes [1]
5234 toponyms are included in the water-related toponym dataset (WRTD), which shows that the toponyms in Hubei Province are rich in water-related place names because they account for 19.15% of all toponyms
Most toponyms in the WRDT are within the 10 km river buffer, and a greater number of toponyms are situated close to rivers, indicating that river networks have a greater impact on the naming of closer place, which is supported by the quantity variance between these buffers
Summary
Researchers are often faced with a deficiency of data sources when investigating the historical evolution processes of various landscapes [1]. A toponym is a general name for any place or geographical entity [3] that records the human activities and natural landscape characteristics around an area during a certain period, and it can serve as a novel data source for historical geographical information [4]. The second section introduces the study area and outlines the methods adopted in this research for the data processing, correlation analysis and landscape reconstruction. A toponym dataset is collected to serve as the data source, after which statistical information is calculated to confirm the global and local correlations between the toponyms and the river network. A strong correlation is evident between the toponyms and river network in Hubei Province; it is believed that toponyms can serve as a source of data for determining the landscape dynamics.
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