Posted by Jacqueline Hoppenreijs | Naturresurs rinnande vatten, Papers, Research

Professor Lutz Eckstein is involved in a new article led by Eva Svensson (Dept. of Political, Historical, Religious and Cultural Studies, KaU) and co-authored by Jan Haas (Geomatics, KaU) in the journal Landscapes (Taylor & Francis). They tested the potential of a low-budget method for integrating information on human impact and natural responses in the vegetation of boreal forested Scandinavia. The information from two national databases in Sweden – the National Inventory of Landscapes in Sweden (NILS) covering surveyed vegetation, and the Register of Ancient Monuments (Fornsök) – were combined and visualized using Geographical Information Systems (see Figure).

Rännberget, Northern Värmland, close to the study area described in the paper. Photo taken by Lutz Eckstein.

No relationships between human impact and vegetation were found at any of the five investigated sites. The authors discuss potential reasons for this, among others mismatches in time and scale between databases but also sectorized survey methods not paying attention to biocultural heritage, landscape perspectives or long-term processes. The paper concludes that further development of survey methods and registers targeting contexts and processes are called for. “This is a good example of `negative´ results, i.e. a study that does not demonstrate any significant patterns being published in an international scientific journal”, says Lutz Eckstein. Read more about the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14662035.2020.1905202.

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