A historical curiosity or a source of accurate spatial information on historical land use? The issue of accuracy of old cadastres in the example of Josephian Cadastre from the Habsburg Empire

• Published in: Land use policy Vol. 100; p. 104937
• Main Authors: Frajer, Jindřich, Fiedor, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2021; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: 18th century; Accuracy; Cadastral mapping; cadastral survey; Habsburg Empire; Historical analysis; historical GIS; historical landscape; Inference; Information; Josephian Cadastre; Land use; Peasants; Spatial data; Statistical inference; Statistics; historical GIS; Josephian Cadastre; historical landscape; Habsburg Empire; cadastral survey
• ISSN: 0264-8377; 1873-5754
• DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104937

•Using of historical sources for evaluating land use change is widespread among research community.•Old written sources (like historical cadastres) are valuable sources of information about historical landscape.•We evaluate accuracy of Josephian Cadastre (18th century), using precise old maps, GIS and statistics.•Despite the primitive surveying methods and participation of non-skilled people (peasants), deviation of measurement in the Josephian Cadastre was surprising (14.8%).•Factors that mostly affected accuracy of measurement of individual plots was land use and slope. Scientific interest across the fields of historical landscape research and historical land use has grown in connection with the dynamic changes in the current landscape. Various historical sources are used for gathering information on historical land use and its reconstruction. These sources are then the subject matter of the research with respect not only to their contents but also to the quality and accuracy of the information presented. Our contribution deals with the issue of accuracy of old cadastres on the example of Josephian Cadastre which dates back to the Habsburg Empire at the end of the 18th century and which was made with the participation of laypeople (peasants) and with minimal technical equipment. We compared the results of field surveys from the Josephian Cadastre with the more recent Stabile Cadastre and using the GIS and methods of descriptive and inference statistics we evaluated the influence of individual factors on accuracy. The resulted average deviation of individual plots in Josephian Cadastre was 14.8% and depended mainly on the land use and slope of the plot. According to the results, we consider that data from this type of source could thus enrich the current known databases by data on long-term land use.