Pre-industrial Landscape Research Articles

A new Meso-Scale coarse-filter indicator for the Canadian boreal forest

Forest management planning and management agencies in Canada have been moving towards an ecosystem-based management (EBM) approach that honours whole ecosystem dynamics over all time and space scales. As part of this evolution, provincial, national, and international agencies have added coarse filter indicators to represent pre-industrial, or ‘natural’ range of variation (NRV) ecosystem conditions as ecologically defendable baselines. The intent was to balance the more traditional species specific (i.e., fine filter) approach to sustainability with a more holistic (i.e., coarse scale) model of ecosystem dynamics. The development and acceptance of coarse filter indicators has been neither linear nor straightforward. One of the more important assumptions inherent in an NRV strategy is that it captures relevant, meaningful patterns at the most appropriate scales in a practical way. To test this assumption, I used a spatially explicit simulation model to compare landscapes created under pre-industrial conditions with those created using four different thresholds of disturbance size commonly used today in boreal Canada. The results suggest that even a 10,000 ha upper size limit create significantly higher levels of homogeneity and fragmentation at intermediate spatial scales relative to pre-industrial landscape patterns. Towards developing a new, more robust coarse filter indicator, the net area burned at four grid sizes over 10 and 20 years was calculated for natural wildfire data from northern Saskatchewan. The results suggest that wildfire tends to cluster at all scales due largely to the influence of large infrequent wildfires. In contrast, data from two forest management areas in Alberta summarized at the same scales confirm that harvesting activity tends to spread out evenly across the landscape. Based on these findings, the NRV data was then refined to capture; 1) the percentage of grid cells where high disturbance levels occur (WHEREs – or WHERE you are) and the proportion where no disturbance occurs (WYNs – or Where You are Not). The WHERE-WYN indicator is unique in that it specifically integrates time as a dimension of landscape dynamics. It is also easily understood and calculated, corresponds directly to management activities, has NRV equivalents, and applicable to most of boreal Canada. Augmenting the current suite of coarse filter indicator with the WHERE-WYN combination addresses a critical gap in our NRV toolkit and will ultimately help create more sustainable landscapes.

The nothingness myth

Abstract This article analyzes the concept of “nothingness” as a part of human- resource relations in pre- and post-industrial landscapes. It addresses nothingness as a part of mythological narratives in Kvartsitnyi settlement in northwestern Russia. Kvartsitnyi was built in the 1970s near the new quartzitic sandstone quarry and was initially viewed as a modern settlement attracting workers from all around the country. However, in the early 2000s, the quarry went bankrupt and closed. The pre-industrial landscape of Kvartsitnyi is often viewed in the interviews as empty, and the quarry's closure recreated this symbolic “nothingness.” These narratives resemble mythological creation stories when a new world appears from nothing but is destroyed as a result of human mistakes. The article discusses the cosmogonic myth of Kvartsitnyi within the larger context of Soviet and post-Soviet myth-making.

Segments of the ancient cultural landscape in the “Hungarian Corner” of Moravia: A valuable pre-industrial heritage

After a brief historical overview, the paper discusses two basic types of natural and cultural heritage in the territory of the “Hungarian corner” of Moravia. For 300 years, this area called a Campus Lucsco in the southeast of today’s republic was disputed territory between the Czech and Hungarian states. Settlement therefore proceeded slowly in waves depending on the political situation. The present international border was established around the year 1333. Numerous documents of the ancient landscape, probably of medieval origin, have been preserved in the current landscape. They are the ground plans of the cores of municipalities, whether they were founded by Czech or Hungarian landlords on one hand, and the remains of ancient land distribution in the form of narrow strips of agricultural land on the other hand. Other areas succumbed to land consolidation during land reforms in the 20th century. While the ground plans of the village cores are only subject to minor changes, the small-scale use of land is still threatened by further merging. The ground plans of the municipalities and land division at the present time (in colour orthophoto maps) were visually compared with the situation documented by the stable cadastre maps from the 1820s–1830s (see Figure 3). Only identical areas in both sources represent urban and rural segments of the pre-industrial landscape, whose roots go back to the dated Medieval Ages. They are documented on selected representative examples well-preserved ground plans of village cores, probably of integrated Hungarian and Czech origin. Similarly, well-preserved examples of the ancient division of agricultural land in flat and dissected terrain both with poly-functional and mono-functional land use are demonstrated. The best-preserved remnants of the ancient pre-industrial landscape are equal in value to protected areas of nature and cultural monuments. Their number and quality these remnants are threatened by economic pressure.

The Endangered Ancient Cultural Landscape Heritage in Moravian Plains

The inventory of remnants from the pre-industrial cultural landscape in Moravia was conducted between 2016 and 2020 across 3075 cadastral areas. This comprehensive project, supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, aimed to document the historical heritage systematically. By comparing the present land use structure through recent orthophotomaps with cadastral mapping from the 1820s-1830s, over 1100 areas re-sembling their appearance from almost two centuries ago were identified. The primary ob-jective of the current research was to discern connections between inventory results and regional as well as local terrain conditions. Historically, the prevalent land use featured narrow strips of fields, often supplemented by aristocratic estates. Unfortunately, only 96 segments of the ancient pre-industrial landscape have endured in the plains region. Among these, a mere 73 are situated on flat terrain (with slopes up to 3°), indicating the pronounced impact of homogenized land use, transforming the plains of Moravia into large, monotonous blocks of arable land. Assessing the preservation of the ancient land use structure, 16 remnants of the historical landscape with a dominance of large-scale use on former estates stand out as being in the best condition on the plains. Only 12 areas exhibit exceptional preservation of the land division into small plots, and of these, a mere seven are located on flat terrain. It is plausible that these areas, characterized by a detailed land tenure possibly dating back to the Middle Ages, represent a historical natural and cultural landscape heritage comparable in value to protected constructions and legally safeguarded natural areas. These specific regions should garner interest and prove suitable for voluntary forms of nature and landscape protection. URL: https://www.gcass.science.upjs.sk/

Cultural Heritage with the Use of Low-Level Aerial Survey Techniques, Space Modelling and Multimedia Reconstruction of the Topographic Landscape (Example of a Windmill in Western Poland)

Technological advancement of the last decades allowed one to develop the process of documentation and popularize the cultural heritage in the form of spatial objects and structures by means of reality modelling. The main goal of the article was to develop a methodology based on the compilation of activities in the field of acquisition (UAV), processing (Metashape and SkechUp), and publication (YouTube) of the data for the purpose of documentation and promotion of topographic cultural heritage objects recorded on nineteenth century maps (pre-industrial landscape). The research was carried out on a windmill located in Kamionka (Poland). It is located in the region of Wielkopolska (Witkowo borough), the cultural landscape of which, despite the progressive industrialization in the nineteenth century, has been shaped mainly by the agricultural land use. The most important results obtained at subsequent stages of the work were finally presented in the form of a short film. This type of presentation based on the use of multimedia is a comprehensive form of sharing research results. YouTube, as the leading medium for publishing audiovisual content, is one of the best places to share research results related to the promotion of cultural heritage.

Mystical Emulations, Inverted Echoes

Mystical Emulations, Inverted Echoes

Nature Is Healing

Nature Is Healing

The Pre-industrial landscape in Moravia. The case study of inventory and analysis of the ancient land use structures in the Czech Republic)

The paper deals with the process of searching and inventorying of relict - so-called pre-industrial landscape - in Moravia (approximately 1/3 of the territory in the east of the Czech Republic). So far, during the inventory of pre-industrial landscape segments in Moravia, around 1,500 land use mosaic areas have been registered, surviving without significant changes since the completion of maps of the so-called stable cadastre realized in the 1830s to the present. Each of these areas with a steady mosaic has been supplemented with substantial quantitative and qualitative characteristics. This paper presents the results of geodatabase analysis of segments of the pre-industrial landscape concerning the sea elevation and morphology of the area. The results show that although numerous parts of stable ancient landscapes have been preserved at higher altitudes, they reach larger separate areas and larger aggregate areas at lower altitudes with more fertile soils. Hypotheses attempting to explain this territorial disparity are also presented in the text of the paper.

”Från pappas lydige Henric”: Pedagogiska perspektiv på det tidiga 1800-talets bildningsresande

“From daddy’s obedient Henric”: Pedagogical perspectives on educational travel of the early 1800s. This article analyses educational travel in the early 1800s from the perspective of its educational heritage and praxis. The aim is to develop an understanding of the pedagogical significance of educational travel. The article makes clear how upbringing and education are represented in the framework of travel narratives in pre-industrial landscapes. The argument is based on the influence of the mercantile class on educational travel and the informal effect of these trips on changes in pedagogical thinking. The travel letters of Johan Henrik Munktell from 1828 to 1830 are used as primary sources. Using Paul Ricoeur’s memory-critical hermeneutics, travel narratives become significant sources for how education is arranged, and immanent pedagogy is a key term. The results demonstrate that the individualisation process works together with forms of crypto-learning, the core of the personal development vision, and society’s long-term memory.

Transformation of the landscape of pre-industrial space in the multimedia depiction

Abstract. The issue touched upon in the research is connected with the interdisciplinary attitude towards the study of the constantly changing landscape in the nineteenth century Central Europe. Such interdisciplinarity results from the combination of the historical approach with the geographical attitude towards the examination of the past presented by unique cartographic materials.The aim of the research was to work out the method of employing cartographic sources and adapting other sources of spatial information for the study and presentation of the landscape transformations in the nineteenth century that occurred as a result of the industrialization process in Europe.Prussian manuscript topographic maps at 1 : 25 000 scale along with early nineteenth-century maps depicting the pre-industrial landscape constitute a significant cartographic source of knowledge. Apart from city plans and other maps, also space descriptions, preserved statistical data, documents, inventories and archives were utilized as sources of spatial information. Photographs, postcards and prints depicting the nineteenth-century landscape were another relevant source of information. Moreover, the data collected during field work, e.g. pictures and short videos made in selected research areas, were also highly useful. The research was conducted, for example, in towns of Greater Poland of different level of economic development. A few types of settlement units were selected, i.e. the village, the town with a mansion (palace), the ‘Olęder’ settlement and the town.On the basis of maps and archives collected for the research area the multimedia method of presentation of landscape types and their transformations, with the employment of geoinformation tools, was suggested. That methodology of multimedia integration of historical materials allowed one to demonstrate consecutive stages of the transformation characteristic of the nineteenth-century landscape.As a result, it became possible to define landscape types for the areas of different level of transformation and preserve the pre-industrial state. Short videos consisting of several sequences that demonstrated the changing form of specific topographic objects, elements of the landscape from the nineteenth century till this day, were the effect of the work. On the basis of the nineteenth-century topographic maps that employed the hatching method for the demonstration of the relief the models of the terrain were generated, which allowed one to create the transition from the parallel perspective to the bird’s eye view that was employed to depict the pre-industrial landscape.

Modelling the land use system process for a pre-industrial landscape in India

Land in India is changing in a rapid pace since the green revolution during 1960 and industrial policy reforms during 1990. Certainly land cover land use (LCLU) changes have huge impacts on countries overall ecological balance and climate change. The most intriguing fact is LCLU change is an interconnected phenomenon like a system. The understanding of local level LCLU dynamics are yet to get a momentum in India. The present study is an attempt: (1) to examine the land use change drivers active at the studied landscape of coastal Karnataka in India and (2) to model the LCLU changes in pre-industrialized period using Dyna-CLUE model. Binary logistic regression was used to categorize land change drivers and to estimate the probability of changes. Odd ratio from logistic regression indicates that the biophysical drivers are most prominent in determining location of LCLU. They being slope, relative relief, drainage density and availability of ground water are the most influential drivers for most of the land classes. The Dyna-CLUE model is successful to simulate the LCLU change at aggregate level but the spatial allocation needs improvement.

Multimedia integration of cartographic source materials for researching and presenting phenomena from economic history

Abstract The article presents a framework for integrating historical sources with elements of the geographical space recorded in unique cartographic materials. The aim of the project was to elaborate a method of integrating spatial data sources that would facilitate studying and presenting the phenomena of economic history. The proposed methodology for multimedia integration of old materials made it possible to demonstrate the successive stages of the transformation which was characteristic of the 19th-century space. The point of reference for this process of integrating information was topographic maps from the first half of the 19th century, while the research area comprised the castle complex in Kórnik together with the small town – the pre-industrial landscape in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland). On the basis of map and plan transformation, graphic processing of the scans of old drawings, texture mapping of the facades of historic buildings, and a 360° panorama, the source material collected was integrated. The final product was a few-minute-long video, composed of nine sequences. It captures the changing form of the castle building together with its facades, the castle park, and its further topographic and urban surroundings, since the beginning of the 19th century till the present day. For a topographic map sheet dating back to the first half of the 19th century, in which the hachuring method had been used to present land relief, a terrain model was generated. The transition from parallel to bird’s-eye-view perspective served to demonstrate the distinctive character of the pre-industrial landscape.

Naga pastoral? The post-pastoral possibilities in Temsula Ao’s hill-poems

In this article I attempt to show the Ao-Nagas’ experience of living in the hills under pre-industrial and industrial systems as represented in the poems of Temsula Ao, an award-winning poet from Nagaland, India. Ao represents the pre-industrial cultural landscape as peaceful, simple, and harmonious and uses the devices of idealization, nostalgia, and return and retreat, and represents the industrial cultural landscape as discordant and as constituting a struggle for survival. I argue that the powerful critical tool of post-pastoral reveals the dynamic ecopoetics in Ao’s poems.

Управляя пространством: организация Спасо-Прилуцким монастырем водных коммуникаций и их структура (XVI–XVII вв.)

The strengthening of governmental structures and an increase in economic activity between the 16th and the 18th centuries in Russia contributed to the formation of a system of roads and waterways. Water transport has some advantages over moving goods by land. The capacity of river and coastal vessels was greater than horse-drawn transports, which meant that the former was less costly. Certain topographical features, varied hydrological conditions in rivers, and diverse weather conditions required a flexible system of waterways as a means of communication. In a preindustrial landscape, the transport network was a compromise between the needs of the individual and the problems imposed by natural factors. The effectiveness of transportation systems depended on organisational and economic factors: governmental structures and communities could obviously provide a greater level of organisation than individuals. One of such communities was the monastery: the Spaso–Prilutsky monastery was a considerable force in the organisation of trade in Northern Russia. On the basis of materials from this institution, the author examines the ways in which natural phenomena shaped the monastery’s transportation network and how the monastery maintained and developed this network.

Quantifying the loss of lichen epiphyte diversity from the pre-industrial Exmoor landscape (south-west England)

AbstractAcross much of lowland Britain, lichen diversity has been dramatically affected by the Industrial Revolution, including the lasting legacy of pollution, and changes in land use including the loss, intensification, or abandonment of traditional woodland management. We sampled preserved epiphytes on historical timbers in vernacular buildings to reconstruct pre-industrial lichen species occurrence for a site in Exmoor, south-west England, and used these data to quantify biodiversity loss that appears related to shifts in woodland composition. A total of 33 lichen epiphyte species were collected from pre-industrial structural timbers, and these were compared with modern lichen occurrence. Based on a direct comparison with species presence-absence in the same 10 km target grid-square,c. 31% of species recorded from the pre-industrial landscape had disappeared from the post-1960 landscape. Based on statistical inference comparing historical records with present-day biogeographical distributions, up to 38% of species could be inferred to be lost. This study presents a surprisingly high figure for these losses for a region in Britain usually recognized as having a relatively unpolluted environment and a diverse set of lichens. Of 12 species that were inferred to be lost, nine are predominantly found on nutrient-rich bark, and in our study onUlmus, the dominant timber in the archaeological samples. We conclude that shifts in phorophyte distribution and abundance may be more important in this region than previously understood.

Portrait préindustriel dans un contexte de grande variabilité naturelle: une étude de cas dans le centre du Québec (Canada)

Pre-industrial forest cover portrait is a recognized method for establishing the bases of sustainable forest management. However, it is a spatially and temporally dependant concept that should be used with caution in presence of big fires. The objective of the study was to portray the pre-industrial landscape in a mixedwood temperate forest in central Quebec at different spatial scales. The study was based on archival records from a forest company. The pre-industrial forest cover landscape of our study area was mainly composed of mature or old-growth (>100 years) stands and dominated by mixedwood forest stands with intolerant hardwoods. The main tree species were white birch, black spruce and jack pine, three species associated to forest succession after fire in the boreal forest. Considering the great variability caused by the fires and partial knowledge of this variability, for each spatial scale considered, we propose some management targets based on the main pre-industrial characteristics of this forest. To respect the pre-industrial variability, our study suggested that silviculture should be adapted at different landscape scales. Cover types and age class targets should be based on main preindustrial characteristics at each landscape scale analyzed.

Preindustrial reconstruction of a perhumid midboreal landscape, Anticosti Island, Quebec

The knowledge of natural disturbance dynamics and preindustrial landscapes is essential to implement sustainable forest management. Recent findings identify the lack of a forest dynamics model, different from the standard cyclic model of Baskerville (1975. For. Chron. 51: 138–140), for balsam fir ( Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) ecosystems of maritime eastern Canada. With the use of historical forest maps and dendrochronology, we reconstructed the range of variability of the preindustrial landscape (6798 km2) and inferred on the natural disturbance dynamics of the balsam fir forest of Anticosti Island. The preindustrial landscape was characterized by a forest matrix of overmature softwood stands with inclusions of younger softwood stands ranging from 0.1 to 7837 ha in size. Widespread stand-initiating events were apparently rare in the preindustrial landscape over the last 160 years. Since our results were not well represented by the cyclic model, which predicts the occurrence of a mosaic of stands in different age classes, we proposed an alternative forest dynamics model for eastern balsam fir ecosystems near the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Forest management inspired by this alternative model may be more appropriate to maintain or restore ecological characteristics of balsam fir forests of this region within their range of natural variability.

Landscape As Infrastructure

Abstract According to a national report on brownfields redevelopment titled Recycling America’s Land (USCM 2006), more than 400,000 sites with real or perceived environmental hazards dot the American landscape today. That legacy is estimated to be worth more than $2 trillion in devalued property. Underlying this legacy is a major network of post-war infrastructures—airports, harbours, roads, sewers, bridges, dikes, dams, power corridors, terminals, treatment plants—that is now suffering major decay from lack of repair and maintenance (ASCE 2008, Infrastructure Canada 2007–2008, Choate and Walter 1983). In revisiting a series of milestone events in the history of North America, this paper draws a cross-section through phases of industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries in order to track how the necessity for infrastructure accidentally emerged from crisis and failure. A series of patterns and shifts are identified to expose the paradoxical, sometimes toxic relationship between pre-industrial landscape conditions and modern industrial systems. The underlying objective of this essay is to redefine the conventional meaning of modern infrastructure by amplifying the biophysical landscape that it has historically suppressed, and to reformulate landscape as a sophisticated, instrumental system of essential resources, services, and agents that generate and support urban economies. Three contemporary streams of development including urban ecologies, bio-industries, and waste economies are explored briefly to discuss future fields of practice.

Past, current, and future fire frequencies in Quebec's commercial forests: implications for the cumulative effects of harvesting and fire on age-class structure and natural disturbance-based management

The past decade has seen an increasing interest in forest management based on historical or natural disturbance dynamics. The rationale is that management that favours landscape compositions and stand structures similar to those found historically should also maintain biodiversity and essential ecological functions. In fire-dominated landscapes, this approach is feasible only if current and future fire frequencies are sufficiently low compared with the preindustrial fire frequency, so a substitution of fire by forest management can occur without elevating the overall frequency of disturbance. We address this question by comparing current and simulated future fire frequency based on 2 × CO2 and 3 × CO2 scenarios to historical reconstructions of fire frequency in the commercial forests of Quebec. For most regions, current and simulated future fire frequencies are lower than the historical fire frequency, suggesting that forest management could potentially be used to maintain or recreate the age-class distribution of fire-dominated preindustrial landscapes. Current even-aged management, however, tends to reduce forest variability by, for example, truncating the natural age-class distribution and eliminating mature and old-growth forests from the landscape. Therefore, in the context of sustainable forest management, silvicultural techniques that retain a spectrum of forest compositions and structures at different scales are necessary to maintain this variability and thereby allow a substitution of fire by harvesting.

Logging-induced change (1930-2002) of a preindustrial landscape at the northern range limit of northern hardwoods, eastern Canada

Logging-induced changes from preindustrial (1930) to current conditions (2002) were studied in a landscape covering 13 550 ha in eastern Quebec. Age and types of forest cover were compared between 1930 and 2002 forest maps. In addition, we compared relative species abundance between living stems and coarse woody debris to study these changes at the stand scale. More than 90% of the 1930 preindustrial landscape was composed of forest stands older than 100 years. A balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) – white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) dominated conifer cover (77% of the landscape area) formed the landscape matrix across the lowlands and was intermingled with mixed stands of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) and conifers on the highlands. As a result of recurrent logging, stands less than 70 years old accounted for 93% of the 2002 landscape. From 1930 to 2002, 37% of the landscape was converted from coniferous to mixed forest, and 19% evolved towards a deciduous cover. The total number of cover patches doubled to 193, whereas mean patch size decreased twofold to 65 ha. Sugar maple, red maple (Acer rubrum L.), striped maple (Acer pennsylvanicum L.), and white birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.) probably experienced a greater increase in abundance, whereas balsam fir, white spruce, and eastern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis L.) experienced a more pronounced decrease. Because it does not consider preindustrial landscape patterns, the system of ecological land classification currently in use in this area suggests that potential late-successional cover types should be more similar to present-day than to preindustrial conditions.