Eglė Piškinaitė, Darijus Veteikis

Methodologies and prospects of historical land use/land cover studies in Lithuania

Abstract The relevance and number of land use/land cover (LULC) studies have significantly increased over recent decades. Census, statistical and cartographic data represent the main information sources for researchers. Short-term LULC change studies are improving faster and are more numerous than the long-term ones. The aim of our study was to review the available methodology for assessing changes in LULC based on historical sources. Old maps are the tool for long-term LULC studies as they allow tracking all LULC changes. However, in Lithuania, old maps are not much exploited for this purpose, which can be explained by the fact that the findings obtained using old maps are not always worth the technical and time inputs required. Our analysis revealed that only a small part of studies into LULC in Lithuania deal with the identification and analysis of LULC change trajectories. Therefore, some methods for determining LULC change trajectories are overviewed in this article, too.

Doi https://doi.org/10.5200/baltica.2022.1.5

Keywords georeferencing, orthophotographic maps, old maps, historical geography

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