Assessing spatially explicit long-term landscape dynamics based on automated production of land category layers from Danish late nineteenth-century topographic maps in comparison with contemporary maps.

ABSTRACT: Historical topographical maps contain valuable, spatially and thematically detailed information about past landscapes. Yet, for analyses of landscape dynamics through geographical information systems, it is necessary to "unlock" this information via map processing. For two study areas in northern and central Jutland, Denmark, we apply object-based image analysis, vector GIS, colour image segmentation, and machine learning processes to produce machine-readable layers for the land use and land cover categories forest, wetland, heath, dune sand, and water bodies from topographic maps from the late nineteenth century. Obtained overall accuracy was 92.3%. A comparison with a contemporary map revealed spatially explicit landscape dynamics dominated by transitions from heath and wetland to agricu

SUBMITTER: Levin G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11761518 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature