Work

Impact of the Cartographer’s Position and Topographic Accessibility on the Accuracy of Historical Land Use Information: Case of the Second Military Survey Maps of the Habsburg Empire

Year: 2021

Type: article

Abstract: Historical maps are critical for long-term land use reconstructions; however, quantifying the uncertainty involved in comparing historical maps with recent data remains a considerable challenge. To date, many works have focused on the technical aspects of comparing historical and contemporary materials, but the potential sources of uncertainty inherent in historical data remain poorly understood. In this paper, we analyze the impacts of the topographic accessibility and cartographer’s field position on the content quality of historical Austrian second military survey maps by referring to independent census data. Our results show that the topographic accessibility and visibility from the cartographer’s surveying table points had very little impact on the map content quality and that the surveying table point locations were uniformly distributed throughout the area, regardless of the landscape conditions. These findings demonstrate that the second military survey maps can be seen as valuable and consistent historical data sources, making them especially useful for long-term land use research in Central Europe.

Source: ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information

DOI: 10.3390/ijgi10120820

Authors: Krzysztof Ostafin, Małgorzata Pietrzak, Dominik Kaim

Institution: Jagiellonian University

Language: English

Topic: Historical Geography and Cartography

Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,512

Funder: Ministerstwo Edukacji i Nauki