Modeling historical forest development on the profiles of cultural-landscape layers

Abstract

This paper considers the reconstruction of forest development in industrial landscape of the town of Novaky and its hinterland in the southern part of the Prievidzska Basin, which is being reconstructed through profiles of cultural-landscape layers (CLL). The main objective of the article is modelling development of forest on the choric model of local country within specific time horizons from the Young and Late Bronze Age (ca 1,200 800 BC) until 2025/30. A secondary objective is to present the method of profiles CLL as an alternative way of evaluating the forest transformations in the landscape. Historical development of the forest on the CLL profiles of Novaky and its hinterland was elaborated according to the large-scale maps from years 1782/84, 1845, 1882, 1900, 1938, 1956 and 1994 transformed into a uniform scale (1: 25 000). Profiles with models of prehistoric (Young and Late Bronze Age), respectively historical development of forest communities in the land use of investigated area from the 13th to 16th century and from years 2011 and 2025/30 were constructed using the above mentioned base maps, literature and the field research results. Method of CLL profiles has the potential to become one of the alternative ways for studying the development of forest and its anthropogenic exploitation It also allows representation of horizontal and vertical dependencies and relationships between natural components of the landscape.