Acta Musealia

Forests of the Vizovice Estate in the Earliest Cadastral Maps

This study reconstructs the forest area in the pre-industrial landscape of Wallachia using index sketches from the 1829 stable cadastral map. The study area comprises thirteen cadastral districts of the Vizovice estate (Zlín Region). The objectives were a) to map forest parcels at the scale of the current cadastral map using a geographic information system, b) to analyze the ownership structure, tree species composition, and age (growth) stages of the forest, and c) to verify the findings against contemporary sources and create an interactive map. The results show that forests covering an area of 3,297.47 ha accounted for a quarter (25.6%) of the Vizovice estate. More than half (51.4%) of the forests were owned by the municipality, a third by the aristocracy (35.3%), and the smallest share belonged to serfs (13.3%). Deciduous stands predominated (72.9%), while mixed (15.1%) and coniferous (12.0%) forests were significantly less common. In the eastern part, the northern limit of the natural range of silver fir in the Western Carpathians can be observed. Stands of mature to final-felling-age timber accounted for the largest share (38.8%), while the youngest stands, up to 30 years of age, accounted for the smallest share (13.0%). The digitization results are supplemented at the cadastral level with forestry statistics from 1856 and 1859 and statistically compared with the area records of the stable cadastre (1845). The study presents the first comprehensive overview of the forests of the Vizovice estate at the beginning of the 19th century. The interactive appendix provides user-friendly material that can be used not only to assess long-term changes in the landscape over the past two hundred years (the current forest area is approximately double what it was), but also as a framework for researching older historical sources related to forests (e.g., the Josephine cadastre).

Keywords: index sketches, 1829, history, Eastern Moravia, forestry, tree species composition, geographic information systems