Land-Use Database in Czechia and its Applications

 

Lucie Kupková

Department for Environmental Studies

Faculty of Science, Charales University Prague

 

Introduction

Land use and land cover patterns belong among important indicators of economic and environmental capacity in every region. They reflect the nature-society interaction and their changes, environmental and social history as well as political conditions. In order to formulate predictions of future land use and land cover changes, a sound knowledge of past trends and current state is inevitable. Thanks to the existence of detail land-use structure data collected over many years by study group under leading doc. Bièík at Department of Social Geography and regional development (Faculty of Science, Charles University), the time analysis in the land-use research in the Czech Republic can be well carried out.

Land-Use Database in Czechia

Our unique land-use database contains the data on land-use structure (see Tab. 1) in 1845, 1948, 1990 and partly 1995 for ca 13,000 cadastral units. Data from all above mentioned years are sorted by cadastral units (CU) and by so called Basic Territorial Units (BTU) too. BTU consist of two or more neighbouring cadastral units where changes of areal extent exceeded 1%. The union was made in a way that joint units would be stable in terms of size during the period 1845-1990 (1995).

 

Table 1: The Structure of Land-Use Data

categories

arable land (AL)

forests (F)

built-up areas (BUA)

 

permanent cultures (PC)

 

water areas (WA)

 

meadows (M)

 

remaining areas (RA)

 

pastures (P)

   

grouped categories

agricultural land (AGL)

forests (F)

other areas (OA)

These data were conveniently collected in the years that mark important historical periods. The years of survey mark the capitalist period (1845-1948), the Communist (non-market economy) period (1948-1989) and the reintroduction of market economy after 1989. As such the changes of land-use patterns can be analysed as a result of mutual narure-society relations over the long period of 150 years.

Data Set and GIS

The GIS framework of this project is based on the digital maps of cadastral units, Basic Territorial Units, districts and regions (Arc/Info format) and the databases. The databases include identification data (codes, names), areal extent of each land use category in all cadastral units (BTU, districts, regions) in 1845, 1948, 1990 and partly 1995, data on natural conditions and agricultural soil quality; coefficients and indexes of changes.

Applications of Land-Use Database

1) Analysis of Changing Land-Use Patterns (district and territorial level)

 

Structural land-use data sorted by Basic Territorial Units (BTU) allow to trace land-use changes between the first and last year of the examined period. To do so the index of change (IC) is used (see figure 1). Partial indexes of change (the areal changes of each land-use category) are also calculated as are areal indexes of selected combined categories: for example the "grass index" reflects the changes of meadows and pastures. Different coefficients and potentials reflecting environmental stability and recreational suitability of different areas are also examined (methodology in: Bièík, I. et. al (1996) or Kupková, L. (1997)).

As outputs of these analyses the special notebooks for each district have been prepared. These notebooks contain a maps of CU and BTU, special tables of land-use development, cartograms (they show the distribution of parameters and coefficients, and reflect the intensity of examined phenomena as well). So far, maps tables and cartograms analysing land use changes on ca one half of Czechia have been created (for example see figure 1).

 

 

*** Figure 1***

 

 

 

2) Analysis of Changing Land-Use Patterns in special regions and small areas

 

The character of our data allows to analyse land use structure and its changes in any special define region throughout the Czech Republic (i.e. National Parks and other protected areas, urban agglomerations, border regions, etc.). But cadastral unit is the “black box” for us. We cannot analyse land-use development of sites inside this box.

Some other methods allow to analyse mostly very small areas (depending on data availability). One of them is detail cartographic analysis of historical maps. We use this method in the case study in the west region of Giant Mountains National Park. Time evaluation of land-use changes in this area is based on three sets of the cadastral maps (the first maps are from 1842 year - so called stable cadaster - origin scale 1 : 2880). Example of this map (output from our GIS) is shown in figure 2.

These partial methods focused on landscape stability and environmental issues, however, are very useful for us, because they can help to verify the general trends resulting from land use analyses.

 

 

***Figure 2***

 

 

3) Practical current outputs

 

Our data give us the possibility to watch topical state and trends of land-use. It has practical meaning for example for contemporary agricultural or landscape management. Our data can help us to find answers in discussion on grassing agricultural land or on expanding or decreasing each land-use category.

 

Conclusion

The methodical approach elaborated by the research team allows to carry out land use studies covering both large and rather small areas, to trace land use trends over certain period of time, to compare the land use structure with other socio-economic and natural characteristics, and to use the results in a number of environmental analyses. The land-use database is good tool for our aim. We can say, it is unique data set not only in Czechia, but all around the word.

 

References:

  1. Bièík, I. (1993): Contribution to the assessment of changes in land use (on an example of recreation environs of Prague): in Acta Universitatis Carolinae Geographica XXVIII, 2, 1993, Karolinum Praha, pages 21 - 35

  1. Bièík, I. et al. (1996): Land Use/Land Cover Changes in the Czech Republic 1845-1995. In: Geografie - Sborník ÈGS, roèník 101, èíslo 2, ÈGS Praha, pages 92 - 109

Kupková, L. (1997): Changing Land-Use Patterns in the Semily District 1845-1995

  1. In.: Acta Universitatis Carolinae Environmentalica 10 (1996), Karolinum, Praha, pages 15 - 35