Changes in woodland cover in the Karviná district from the second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 21st century

Abstract

Abstract This study analyses the changes in woodland cover from the mid-18th century to the turn of the 21st century in a distinctive region of the Czech Republic – the Karviná district. This region has been substantially affected by the process of industrialisation during the 19th and 20th centuries, which transformed a formerly agricultural landscape into a landscape heavily impacted by underground coal mining and related landscape processes. The occurrence of woodland cover in the Karviná district was determined from historical military maps (second half of the 18th century, first half of the 19th century, second half of the 19th century, first half of the 20th century) and from a colour orthophoto (2017) verified with reference to a contemporary map. The article interprets the occurrence of woodland cover depicted in the abovementioned sources and presents an interpretative key. The vectorisation of the woodland cover and the analysis of temporal–spatial changes in woodland cover were conducted using ArcGIS 10 software.