Long-term land-use / land-cover changes in Czech border regions

Abstract

This article describes the long-term development of land use and land cover in Czech border regions from 1845 to 2015. It provides an overview of the main works involving Czech border regions and findings by the Faculty of Science at Charles University. The study used the Land Use / Land Cover Changes Czechia (LUCC Czechia 2018) database with six time horizons (1845, 1896, 1948, 1990, 2000, and 2010) and eight categories of land use for approximately nine thousand territorial units, and CORINE Land Cover data for 1990, 2000, and 2006. It also presents a detailed analysis of land-use and land-cover change in one locality in the eastern part of the Krkonoše (Giant Mountains) range, based on land-registry and field-survey data. Development of the LUCC was influenced by the expulsion of ethnic Germans along the western border after the Second World War. The natural conditions in the Czech border areas were identified as another significant factor influencing changes. Changes influenced by these two factors, in combination with several other drivers, are reflected in changes in proportions of land-use and land-cover categories. In the communist period (1948–1990), a significant increase in forests and grasslands accompanied by an extreme decrease in arable land was documented, and the trend of extensification also continued in the transition period from 1990 to 2010.