Measuring long-term landscape change using historical photographs and the WSL Monoplotting Tool

Watkins, Charles; Gabellieri, Nicola

Abstract

© 2019, © 2019 Society for Landscape Studies. This paper assesses the potential of software developed by the research group of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in order to georeference and vectorise historical landscape photographs. The use of this ‘Monoplotting’ Tool introduces a new application for topographical photographs and opens up the possibility of using such photographs for measuring land-use change. This paper reviews the literature on the use of historical photographs for landscape history. It introduces the new software and then goes on to examine how vectorised topographical photographs may help in the measurement of land-use changes in the mountainous landscape of Liguria and Trentino in the late nineteenth and twentieth century.

Citation

Watkins, C., & Gabellieri, N. (2019). Measuring long-term landscape change using historical photographs and the WSL Monoplotting Tool. Landscape History, 40(1), 93-109. https://doi.org/10.1080/01433768.2019.1600946

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 14, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Apr 9, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 2, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jan 17, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 3, 2020
• Journal: Landscape History
• Print ISSN: 0143-3768
• Electronic ISSN: 2160-2506
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 93-109
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01433768.2019.1600946
• Keywords: History; Nature and Landscape Conservation; Horticulture
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1479197
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01433768.2019.1600946
• Additional Information: Peer Review Statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope.; Aim & Scope: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=rlsh20; Published: 2019-04-09