Assessment of changes in forest coverage based on historical maps

Forest has always been an important natural resource. Issues related to forest reserve, coverage area, distribution pattern and status have been important to the forest, nature protection, as well as to environment management specialists. The present studies have proved that it is not easy to find a clear and simple answer to the above-mentioned essential issues. The indicators of the importance of the forest coverage or the coverage area at a certain period of time depend on the applied assessment methodology, primary source used, etc. The main objectives of this study were to analyze the possibilities of using historical maps for studying the formation and changes of the forest coverage in the longer timely retrospect. The continuity of the forests and the possibilities of defining the variation of the areas covered with forest and open landscape were studied at the test area using the map material covering 150-year period (reference years were 1850, 1949 and 2002). The results of the analyses show that it is possible to reconstruct partially the formation of the forest in some areas and it is possible to define the areas, which have been covered with forests for tens or hundreds of years. It is possible to analyze from which land use classes the present forest community has been formed of and define the age of it. At the same time, several methodological questions arise in connection with the interpretation of the map information of the materials of the 19^th century and definition of the term "forest". For example, one problematic issue is the vague definition of the class "Buschland" which in present terms could have at the time of mapping been either agricultural land or already a young forest. The comparison carried out at the test area showed that the coverage rate of the present forest areas with the areas covered with forests or such vague areas in 1850 is 75%.