Franziscean Cadastre in Landscape Structure Research: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Historical and archival sources are of cardinal importance in landscape research addressing the processes and course of landscape changes in European regions. The Franziscean cadastre from the 19th century is among the most widely used historical sources in Central Europe. We identified 1440 records, finally providing 104 articles reporting the use of the Franziscean cadastre for in-depth analyses in order to identify (i) the practice of the cadastral data processing, (ii) purpose and spatial extent of the study, (iii) use of complementary sources and (iv) particular land use/land cover classes under study. We have found the increasing attention towards the Franziscean cadastre as a source for landscape research reflected by the doubling number of records in the past decade with majority of the case studies located in Czechia (79), followed by Austria (9) and Italy (3). We have identified the trends in the use in landscape trajectory research and application to hydrology, agriculture and forestry. As regards the data processing, several issues connected with the methodology or design of the records were found (e.g. geographic information system processing description and data source specification). We further problematize the suitability of the supplementary data used and conclude our review with a set of recommendations to contribute to the discussion on the methodology of landscape reconstruction with historical datasets.

Accuracy assessment of old large-scale maps and reducing positional error in land use change analyses

“…The achieved mean positional errors are in the range of three to four metres for both map sources, which is very good accuracy considering the scale values of the map sources used, con rming the suitability of these maps for landscape studies. This is also shown by the results of a study (Dolejš and Forejt, 2019) that analysed articles using the stable cadastre of the 19th century as a basis for landscape research and con rmed that the stable cadastre is one of the most commonly used historical sources in Central Europe. Its possibilities are constantly expanding with everimproving digital methods and the increasing availability of archival map data (Talich, 2020).…”

Availability of Historical Cadastral Data

“…The cadastral survey in the Austrian part started immediately after the patent enactment and lasted until 1858, while the establishment of the cadastre in the Hungarian part started in 1847 and lasted until Land 2021, 10, 917 4 of 20 1884 [7]. Apart from the Franciscan Cadastre, there are different terms that are used by various scientists: stable, stabile, Franciscian Cadastre and others [38].…”