Analysis of spatiotemporal changes of agricultural land after the Second World War in Czechia

Abstract

The term Sudetenland refers to large regions of the former Czechoslovakia that had been dominated by Germans. German population was expelled directly after the Second World War, between 1945 and 1947. Almost three million people left large areas in less than two years. This population change led to a break in the relationship between the people and the landscape. The aim of the study is to compare the trajectories of these changes in agricultural landscapes in lower and higher altitudes, both in depopulated areas and areas with preserved populations. This study included ten sites in the region of Northern Bohemia in Czechia (18,000 ha in total). Five of these sites represent depopulated areas, and the other five areas where populations remained preserved. Changes in the landscape were assessed through a bi-temporal analysis of land use change by using aerial photograph data from time hoirzons of 2018 and 1953. Land use changes from the 1950s to the present are corroborated in the studied depopulated and preserved areas mainly by the trajectory of agricultural land to forest. The results prove that both population displacement and landscape type are important factors that affect landscape changes, especially in agricultural landscapes.

The main processes responsible for landscape transformation in post-industrial urban areas in Central Europe

“…11). The situation is similar in the OKR area of the Czechia, where this phenomenon has been occurring for many years now, but with greater intensity after the collapse of socialism (Zelinka et al, 2021). The area of arable fields in the OKR decreased by 3% during the research period.…”

Ecological and historical factors behind the spatial structure of the historical field patterns in the Czech Republic

“…Within the last millennium, the cultural landscape of Central Europe has undergone several dramatic transformations that have changed the settlement structure: medieval colonization and field pattern redesign 86 , 131 , 132 , the 15th-century religious wars, which destroyed many villages 133 – 135 , the Thirty Years’ War, which resulted in a decline in population by one third, economic losses, land abandonment and property confiscations 23 , 136 – 140 , eighteenth to nineteenth-century rational redesign of the field ownership structure 27 , 85 , 141 , an industrial revolution with the rapid expansion of cities 142 , mid-twentieth century forced collectivization of agriculture, extensive changes in land use, the destruction of traditional field patterns, and ruining of private land ownership by the communist regime 37 , 143 – 148 , as well as land consolidation activities, some of which changed the small-scale historical field pattern into large blocks of arable land 149 . At the present time, some parts of the agricultural landscape are being abandoned for various reasons 38 .…”

Administrative system of afforestation in the Czech Republic: A long journey to a new forest

“…In the 50's of the 20 th century, two phenomena coincided, especially in the border areas of the Czech Republic (Opršal et al 2013). The first was a significant and somewhere permanent decline in settlement as a result of the expulsion of the German population after World War II (Kacálek et al 2011;Grešlová et al 2015;Zelinka et al 2021). As an example, we mention the area of territorial jurisdiction of today's 'Municipality with Extended Powers' Králíky (Ústí nad Orlicí District, Pardubice Region, Czech Republic).…”