The development of land use maps

The development of land use maps W.G.V. Balchin

This paper explores the development of land use mapping, tracing its beginnings to the property surveys commissioned by landowners in the 16th century. It explains how due to increased demands, land use mapping became more complicated with the passing of time, until in the early 26th century local geographical surveys provided the impetus for the First Land Utilisation Survey of Britain, conducted by Dudley Stamp. From this point, the article explains how overseas interest grew and new methods were devised to deal with land uses unknown to the British mapper, and how the discipline has continued to evolve to cope with worldwide problems. Keywords: land use mapping; survey; UK

land use

Professor Balchin is Emeritus Professor of Geography at University College, Swansea. He can be contacted at 10 Low Wood Rise, Ben Rhydding, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, LS29 8AZ, UK.

‘Edward Lynham, British Maps and Map Makers, Collins, London, UK, 1944, p 12, Public Record Office. E 164/25 membrane 222. ‘John Blagrave, Plan of Forest and Manor of Feckenham. Worcestershire 1591, British Library, Maps, MTGbl(l2). 3John Norden, Survey of the Honor of Windsor 7607, British Library, Harley MS 3749. 4Moses Glover, The Hundred of Isleworth, Middlesex 1635, The original hangs in Syon House.

0284-8377/85/01003-13803.00

0

The first systematic investigations into the use of land were probably made and recorded on clay tablets in ancient Babylon and Egypt during the second and third millenia BC, but the oldest detailed written record appears to be the Domesday Survey of England in 1086 AD. No graphic representation of the survey accompanied the written record and land use maps per se had to await the development of topographic survey before becoming an accepted method of illustrating land use in precise detail. In medieval England, verbal descriptions of property boundaries were given in charters and only rarely was a plan attached. An exception was the plan of the Benedictine Abbey of Chertsey of 1432 although this was as much a picture as a map. ’ The first glimmer of land use mapping appeared with the great advance in map making that took place during the renaissance. William Cuningham, a physician from Norwich, in the Cosmogruphical Glasse in 1559, was one of the first to put forward the idea of the map as ‘a mirror of reality’. He was followed by the great county surveyors of the 16th and 17th centuries who gradually put the proposal into operation. For instance the county maps of Christopher Saxton published in atlas form in 1579 show woods and depict parks as fenced enclosures. The maps were, however, of too small a scale to form the basis of the present-day concept of a land use map, for the boundaries of the fields, such as they were, could not be shown. It was the property survey rather than the county map which was the real forerunner of the land use map. Landowners became interested in recording the use of their estates for management purposes and also when transfers took place. Hand colours were early used to indicate meadow, woodland, pastures, corn etc. Some good examples include John Blagrave’s map of the Forest and Manor of Feckenham, Worcestershire (1591),* John Norden’s survey of the ‘Honor of Windsor’ for James I (1607) ,3 and Moses Glover’s map of The Hundred of Isleworth, Middlesex for the Earl of Northumberland (1635).4 It was from this period that specific land uses precisely equated with specific plots of land are first found, while at the same time, John Norden in the text of his Surveyors Dialogue (1607) had the perspicacity to recognize the importance of land use change. While the traditional style of the English estate plan changed little in the 18th century, somewhat larger scales permitted a greater range of categories and symbols. The area of the coverage also began to expand to whole towns and eventually counties, although this implied a

1985 Butterworth

& Co (Publishers)

Ltd

3

diminution

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to Woodforci

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land

published

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of London

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doubt

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the way t’o~- the next

boundaries

lands

densities

in S-l rolls

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in

hnnd-coloured

p:ivetl

Milne’s

agricultural

Common

maps

most

Scotl:rncI

1000 yards

3s it w;~s not incorpor;itcd

of Agriculture

pasture,

in the west

of

intcrcst

=

Library.’

moorl;ind. for

of

I inch

British

symbols

achicvcment

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with

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W;IS Thomas

means

of

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included

C;crlo~rl

map showing

with

hut

green

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chart

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Tcddington

light

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maps which folloued Inter. . specific:ill> LISC maps IX’I’ SC, ie maps portr;iying of the v:irious forms of land cover whcthcr

Imcl

of the

These

hounchtrich hv F.G.

in

in the topogrnphic

the first

spati

reports

Surrey enclosures.

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foundation

4

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War.

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Field

in 1753,

:md

W;I~ (‘hristopher

in 1747-55

cultiv:ited

the

1761

, grass or iirahle

roads

;I

and

173-l

;I sc;~le of five inches

in

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“F.G. Emmison, ed, County Maps of Essex 1576-1852. A handlist (1955). ‘E.M.J. Campbell, Ai English Philosophico-Chorographical Chart, lmago Mundi (1979) Vol 6, pp 79-84. 7British Library, K Top XLVIII 25. ‘British Library, King George Ill Topographical Collection, K Top VI 95. ‘G.B.G. Bull, ‘Thomas Milne’s land utilisation map of the London area 1800’, Geographical Journal, Vol 122, pp 25-30.

the

It w;is

tints

Berkshire

period

background

settlement.

Colour

in

hy maps of Shropshirc

\voodlands.

land, ~ “rccn

this

section\

c:rtegories

was

surveyors

En$and

have been cxprcsscd

neccssirrily

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3S

1750.

map of this

iir:ihle

(l:.%OOO).

to

in 34 sheets on

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completeci

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18th century

foremost

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This

1754.

These

of the Rocque

map

;I detailed

to one mile 1761.

One

John

of General

cartogr:tphic of the English

Survey,

William

1X01 on :I scale of one into

use

many

scales

information

LAND

USE

and

but

POLICY

founded

Roy. inch

editions

they

have

January

Its first to one have

IKWI

1985

become comprehensive land use records. The larger scales show many enclosures without specifying their contents, especially in rural areas, while the smaller scales have to generalize and originally had only a military use in mind. Some of the manuscript surveyors’ drawings, however, do include land use information which was omitted on the published maps. Paradoxically the 19th century witnessed the accumulation of a great deal of land use information in Britain but it was not expressed in map form. The Tithe Redemption Commission’s records for 1835-40 contain details of land liable to tithe. parish by parish, but there arc many gaps. A second source is the annual collection of agricultural statistics which began in Ireland in 1837 as ;I result of the 184647 potato famine and which was extended to England. Wales and Scotland in 1866. This is of limited use. however. as only acreage figures per parish arc available. A third source is the Ordnance Survey itself. as the surveys from 1855 onwards kept field or ‘Area‘ books in which they recorded the size and use of each parcel of land. This continued until 1880 when the land use column was discontinued. The Area books thcmselvcs lasted until 18x8 when they were dropped as an economy measure. Unfortunately this source of information is of variable value and applies only to a quarter of England and Wales (mainly south-east England) and about ;I third of Scotland (mainly the Lowland areas). In a recent research publication. J.B. Harley has shown that Lt Gen Sir Henry James, who was Director of the Ordnance Survey throughout much of this period made valiant attempts to include land use information in the survey but was continuously frustrated by Treasury economy edicts. I” Throughout all this period. publishers and authorities overseas revealed limited enthusiasm for any kind of land use depiction, probably because the scales of published maps were on the whole too small. World atlases showing countries and administrative areas wcrc the order of the day. One of the few large scale surveys to be undertaken was the famous Cute de Cuhirwt map of Austrian possessions in the Low Countries prepared by Comte Joseph dc Ferraris in 177&78. Consisting of 275 sheets, the scale of I : I I520 is large enough for a great deal of land use detail to be shown. The survey was, however, primarily for military and state intelligence purposes and only three copies were made. At about the same time the Cassini maps of France on ;I scale of 1:86400 began to appear and could well have had ;I cartographic influence on the subsequent Ordnance Survey maps. But Austria was where the next real land use map appeared: in IX30 a map of Vienna by the Austrian Quarter Master General’s Office was published (this land use map was probably the first map to be produced by chromolithography). ’’ The Ordnance Survey’s emphasis on topographic representation and its limited interest in land use set the standard for much of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. No map records exist, for example, of the plough-up campaign of the first world war. It was not until the 1930s that the first systematic land use survey of Britain was carried out and the results subsequently published fully in both map and text form. “J.B. Harley, ‘The Ordnance Survey and land use mapping’, Historical Geography Research Series, No 2, December 1979. “British Library, Map Library Maps, 6 c 16.

LAND USE POLICY

January

1985

The (First) Land Utilisation Survey of Britain The (First)

Land Utilisation

Survey of Britain

is now inextricably

linked

5

with the name of Dudley Stamp and the fact that his work was triggered by local geographical surveys carried out by individual teachers during the 1920s tends to be overlooked. One individual who promoted the technique further than others, was E.E. Field of Northamptonshire. Hc conceived the idea of providing schools with six-inch maps (1: 10 560) on which land use detail could be recorded. The project was supported by Northamptonshire Education Committee through its Director J.L. Holland who was later instrumental in gaining the cooperation of the Ordnance Survey in the production of three one-inch county land use maps derived from the six-inch field sheets. These maps, published in 1929, show grassland in light green. woods in dark green, cultivated land (including rotation grasses and fallow) in brown, with ‘waste’ or ‘unproductive’ land left uncoloured. It was, however, Dr L. Dudley Stamp (later Professor Sir L. Dudley Stamp) who recognized the potential of a complete national land use cover and in 1930, with the aid of students from the Joint School of Geography of King’s College and the London School of Economics, he initiated pilot surveys to work out a national scheme of seven major land use categories with a number of subdivisions. The result closely resembles Milne’s 1800 classification of which Stamp was unaware. The Land Utilisation Survey of Britain was then lauched, and using J.L. Holland’s experience in Northamptonshire, County Directors of Education were persuaded to stimulate teachers (mainly geographers) and students into mapping land use data on the six-inch maps. Data were then extracted from the field sheets and published at the scale of one inch to one mile (see map extract (a)). The uniqueness of the First Land Utilisation Survey of Britain lies in its comprehensiveness and morphogram technique (where every plot of land is given its true shape and true use). Stamp also stressed the value of ‘facts on the map’ and of comprehensive area measurement. On a carefully prepared map, no facts need be omitted and no facts can be recorded twice under different headings as can happen in the case of statistics. A further major contribution by Stamp was the production of a set of 92 county reports and a major national report interpreting the maps.” Over and above these academic achievements of pioneering cartographic, quantitative and literary information for the whole country. Stamp’s analytical work demonstrated the practical importance of land use survey. As he had mapped, measured and reported on both urban and rural areas, he was able to show the balanced need for conserving the farmland resource and improving the urban environment.

Overseas experience There is little doubt that the complete publication in the 1940s of the first comprehensive British land utilisation survey inspired a great deal of interest overseas. In 1949, the International Geographical Union (IGU) established a World Land Use Survey and by 1956 over 50 countries had embarked on some form of land use mapping although not all have since completed a full national cover. The first preoccupation of the IGU Commission was to produce a standard classification and cartographic convention which became known as the Old World “L.D. Stamp, The land of Britain: Its Use and Misuse, Longman Green.

Scheme inbuilt

(1950) flexibility

and which in

order

combined

basic colour

to accommodate

recommendations

variations

with

in land use from

LAND USE POLICY

January

1985

country to country. It came as no surprise, however, that this scheme failed owing to the wide range of conditions which existed and the consequential need for a wide spectrum of scales and variety in the cartographic conventions adopted.” The British experience was not universally applicable as the land uses of developing countries and continental areas were considerably different. Few countries had maps with such a detailed survey base as Britain, nor were they served with such a good network of roads and paths making access easy. In contrast most overseas territories were extensive, thinly popuiated and lacking definitive plot boundaries so that scales of 1:2SO~~(~ rather than 1:2SOOO, and air survey rather than ground survey, were more appropriate. These difficulties explain the side tracking of some survey authorities from factual lund use maps to a variety of vegetation, cover-type and agricultural maps including more theoretical land cupability maps (Canada) and hd systems maps (Australia). For British Colonial territories of the mid-century one very important agency in devising cartographic answers to a great variety of land use conditions was the Directorate of Overseas Surveys.

Post-war Britain Most of the overseas land use surveys were officially sponsored and funded, in contrast to the private effort of Stamp in Britain. It did seem, however, in post-war Britain that land utilisation survey had passed the same critical transition point as its predecessors, topographic, hydrographic, geologic and soil survey. All of these were pioneered privately and all came to be assured of permanency in the hands of official government agencies. It seemed that the same assurance was being vouchsafed to land use survey in 1947 when the Town and Country Planning Act required the newly initiated planning authorities to produce five yearly plans, but this has not proved to he the case in practice. The work was unfortunately split between numerous separate bodies instead of being entrusted to a unitary professional survey organization such as the Ordnance Survey. The 1947 Act was a backward step to the patchy uncoordinated survey work of earlier centuries. There was also a concentration on urban areas and urban problems partly as a result of an increasing demand for urban detail for rating purposes, including the categorization of separate rooms on separate floors of many buildings. This produced a three dimensional problem which was difficult to show ~artographi~ally and it encouraged a shift towards computer recording with a consequent loss of spatial pattern recognition. The ‘low level of graphic awareness’ among local authorities was commented upon in a report prepared by the Experimental Cartography Unit as recently as 1978. Another backward step has been the tendency to concentrate on sample surveys and problem-based surveys in contrast to the comprehensive inventory-based survey advocated by Stamp and others. There is a place for both the sample and the problem-based presentation but these should follow on from the comprehensive inventory type of survey: normally only inventories will reveal new problems which can then be investigated in depth.

The Second Land Utilisation Survey of Britain 13A. Clark,

‘The world land use survey’, Geographica Helvetica, 1976, p 27.

LAND USE POLICY January 1985

The Second

Land Utilisation

Survey of Britain,

initiated

in 1960 by Miss

Map extracts ( (a) = uppermost) (a)

of‘ Rrituitr (Direct4

Lrrtlti Utilist~fiotz Strrwy

(Ficsr)

hy I_. Dudlcy

Stamp in the lK3Os). Surveyed in the field at the scale of 1:10560 and published nt the scale of 1 :63360 (one inch to one mile). Seven categories are distinguished fallow,

Br-owtr arable land including

as follows:

short leys. rotation

grass and market gardens: Ligllr grwtt land and permanent grass: Purple orchards and nurseries.

meadow

houses with gxdens: 134 agriculturally unproductive land-densely quarries. tips. roads: Ycllo~r~ heath. built up arcas, industry, moorland, woodlnnd:

commons Bllrc water.

>rnd rough

land:

forest

Dcrrk ,qtwtt

and

(17) .Sccottri Lrrttti Utilkrrtiott Slrrlv>l of’ Britrritt (Directed by Alice Coleman in the 1960s). Surveyed in the field at the scale of I : I0560 and published at the scale of 1:3000. Field boundaries can be shown

70

scale. and improved cartographic techniques enable to he clearly distinguiahcd. Major groups arc

on this

categories

represented

by colour

Rrow~tr arnhle:

thus:

t’rrrple orchards,

nurseries,

utilities.

and tips: onrtigc

quarries

market

Ljy/lr

gtwtt

grassland:

Rcri m~1nufacturing. Gtyv coniniercial 2nd

gardening:

transport:

Litttc grrut tended open space: Ydlo~z~ heath, rough land: Dark grwtt woodland: Blrrc) water:

residential:

land,

unvcgetated groups ing,

are variouslv

symbols.

letters

classification

(c)

shown

by conventions:

or numbers.

the dctailcd

dots,

White

of the lines,

niaior

crosshatch-

read the map at both Icvcl\ ot

To

key on each sheet

must

be consulted.

C‘(~ttfrrrlNiprio

Ltrttti 1J.s~~Mtrp accompanying

;I I,and

Resource

Study

in 1977 by the

Division.

Ministry

of

published

Overseas

from

air

Cultivation under

Development.

photographs

outlined

and

nccompanying cate forest cropping

Resources

Information

generalized

on a density

at any given

time

was

at the

basis.

White less

10%

report

in

for

Food

to fallow

crops years

of

largely

I :X)000.

system

must

Heavy

and cash crops, are distinguished

of Innd

rotation

cycle.

Xi%-hO%:

Land

r-cd. refel-cncc

amplification.

scale

the Iand

Midortrttgc

than

dcrivcd

ic the percentage

during

60’14, cultivated:

numbered

areas. years

Land

UK.

and

is classified

cultivation

Dark orrtttgc~ over orrrtigr I()?&34%:

8

land. Subdivisions

Hlrrck derelict

land:

moor-

be

/‘II/C

areas

mude

gtwti

lines

and average in sample

LAND

arc

to

the

tleniarratios

ol

area\;.

USE

POLICY

January

1985

3 ‘_

03

:,I, I

\

,’

“‘G.C. Dickenson and M.G. Shaw, Monitoring Land Use Change, Centre for Environmental Studies, London, 1977.

LAND USE POLICY January

1985

Alice Coleman (also of the Joint King’s/LSE School of Geography) was in some respects a reaction to the problem-based surveys of the 1c)SOs. Designed as an evolutionary step from the Stamp comprehensive inventory, the Second Survey aimed at repeating the six-inch field coverage but with a considerably more detailed classification producing about ten times as many categories. The portrayal of 70 categories on the published maps was made possible by using the 1:X000 scale which did not exist for Britain at the time of Stamp’s survey. It had the immense advantage of showing field boundaries. but also proved to be something of a mixed blessing since the increased cost militated against the publication of a complete cover. However, the 120 published maps have demonstrated what could be achieved if land use survey were to be accorded the same official status as topographic. hydrographic. geologic and soil survey, ie as a unitary survey with land use as the primary concern and not as a mapping exercise incidental to planning activities or subject to commercial constraints. The first survey of Britain was planned as a single set of catcgorics each represented by one colour. The second survey introduced two levels of classification: major groups are represented by colours and subdivisions arc represented by conventions. In selecting the m:tjor groups, an attempt was made to adhere as closely as possible to the Stamp classification that had been developed for the Old World division of the Commission for a World Land Use Survey. The prescribed &ours were adopted for six groups (blue for water and marsh. yellow for vegetation, dark green for woodland, light green for improved grass. brown for arable land and purple for horticulture and orchards). but three new colours were introduced for additional categories (lime green for tended open space, white for unvegetatcd land. and black for derelict land). and two of the prescribed colours were altered. One of these was orange, intended for shifting agriculture but used instead to denote transport land which clearly needed a category of its own in a country of high road and rail density and many ports and airports. The other change concerned urban settlement which was scheduled to be shown in a range of reds and pinks. Pink proved to be too weak to overcome the grey underprinting on the base map and it was thcrcfore decided to use the grey itself as the basic urban colour rcscrving red for industry. Grey proved to be an advantageous foil for the other more colourful urban categories such as parks and allotments (see map extract (b)). The major groups were subdivided by means of conventions of various kinds. Arable land for example was shown by means of stripes. dots and cross hatching in the basic colour, brown. Factory types were indicated by numbers, and types of semi-natural vegetation by letters. The effect aimed at was to enable the map to be read at two levels. A superficial glance would distinguish major groups by colour, while a more detailed scrutiny would bring out the subdivisions by means of the conventions. Recently the Second Land Utilisation Survey has added a third dimension to its classification. The concept of curtiluge, suggested by G.C. Dickenson and M.G. Shaw in 1977. was adopted as a means of clarifying resurveys then in progress. ” The problem of detail becomes particularly acute when urban areas are mapped at the larger scale of 1:2500. For example should an estate of flats be shown simply as residential land or should it be divided into its buildings, tended lawns,

9

roads, car parks and garage groups etc? The curtilage concept is a means of showing both. ft is a Iahelled line that is drawn around the perimeter of any operating unit such as a school, hospital, airport, defence establishment, etc, that contains different land uses needing different colours. The colours may in turn he divided into subcateg~~ries distinguis~ied by conventions: for example. solid orange for roads but cross-hatch for car parks. In this way it is possible to produce statistics for, say, car parking land regardless of whether it is public or restricted. But this does not interfere with the ability to derive figures for institutions regard&s of how the land is used. The curtilage principtc introduces a cross-referencing major groups represented by the conventions.

facility which can be applied either to the

by the colours or the subdivisions represented

A larger scale for recording use also permits a division of the grey settlement category into houses, caravans, campsites. flats, community residences, barns, stables, businesses. schools and hospitals by means of colour. I.5

World problem It has been noted that the British experience is not universally applicable overseas. Portrayal of African krmds, shifting cultivation or Canadian wheatfields produce completely different cartographic problems. One ma,jor difficulty in overseas territories is the lack of plot boundaries and the inability to apply the m(~rphogr~~m principle which has been the basis of the detailed British surveys, where each patch on the map corresponds

in size and shape to ;m individual

land use on the

ground. N~)rrn~Illy patches will correspond to plot b~~undaries or will be revealed by air photographs. If a morphogram base is not available the only alternative is some kind of artificial unit such as a grid square or a purely arbitrary division (see map extract (c)). Of equal consequence is the scale of the survey and the scale of the published results. A survey is usually carried out on a scale two to five times as great as the published result since all maps aim to bring surface phenomenon down to scales suited to human vision. In this way facts or patterns may he revealed which even local inhabitants have failed to realize. The ground dweller has a linear-facade view of the environment but the map reader has a spatial air view. Clearly the size of the total area to be surveyed will affect the final published scale: the medium to huge scales appr~~pri~~te for small countries give way to small scales for continental areas and this greatly affects the character of the resulting land use maps. It is significant that in 1976 the United States Geological Survey classified the range of possible scales into four levels, related to the altitudinal level at which their respective remote sensing data could be obtained. The four levels were as follows:

I

‘5Alice

Coleman and Janet Shaw, Field

Mapping Manual, Second Land Utilisation Survey of Britain, 1980.

10

rtrrrgr 1: 1000 000 I :80000--l :250(~00

SSUfiJ

LWd

II III

Earth Satellite High Altitude Medium Altitude

915OOOm (30[)~~(~[) ft) Over 12400m (40000 ft) 3 10~124OOm (I(~()~~) ft)

IV

Low Altitude

Below

A survey of over a hundred

3 100m (10000 international

LAND

ft)

1:20000~1:8O~H~O larger than 1:X0(10

land use maps confirms

USE POLICY

January

this

1985

The development of land use maps

division and reveals a fundamental difference between levels I/II and III/IV. l6 Scales larger than 1:80000 are in most cases morphogrambased following British practice. With scales smaller than 1:80000, generalization becomes necessary and the map may pass into theoretical land capability or land systems representations. On the true land use maps there appear to be only three categories common to all. These may be termed ‘super-categories’, and are respectively settlement, farmland and vegetation. These all represent different criteria - respectively function, production and cover types, but they have been universally recognized as representing the reality of most land use situations. The settlement super-category is the non-agricultural man-made environment. It includes residential, commercial, industrial and institutional buildings, transport facilities, paved surfaces, tips and mines, tended open spaces, schools, etc. The criterion is essentially function. The improved farmland super-category is the man-made agricultural environment. It includes arable cropland, horticultural land, glasshouse cultivation, allotment gardens, orchards, plantation crops, improved pasture, temporary grass. In its boundary with settlement it excludes agricultural buildings (apart from glasshouses) and house gardens. In its boundary with the vegetation super-category it has to find firm cut-off points where pasture and tree crops respectively grade into semi-natural ranges and forests and this is the reason for incorporating the word ‘improved’ into the category name. It is easy to see where improved pasture abuts against unimproved range land but often impossible to distinguish rough grazings from unused vegetation of similar types. The criterion for this category is essentially production. The vegetation or land-cover super-category includes all types of natural and semi-natural vegetation and other cover types such as rock outcrops, screes, sand dunes, desert, beaches, cliffs, marshes, water bodies and glaciers. This is land where the hand of man has made a minimum impact and where the criterion is essentially cover type. Each of the three major super-categories may be divided into further subcategories according to the scale of the map and the locality being portrayed. The extent of the division reflects the complexity of the locale and the skill of the surveyors or cartographers in the map production. Too many divisions and the map may become illegible; too few and only generalization may be achieved. This, however, is entering into the problem of land use classification which is beyond the scope of this paper. The examination of overseas land use maps clearly shows that the newly initiated surveys gradually improved upon Stamp’s original maps by introducing more finely differentiated subtypes. In many cases larger scales were used to accommodate the additional detail. For example Singapore initially used 1:6336 to show 42 categories and Hungary 1:25000 to show 98 categories. Some surveys supplement the observable land use data with additional background information. In Poland, for instance, patterns of dots are used to indicate the number of courses in each crop rotation. In some cases, however, the trend towards greater detail became too burdensome and offsetting reductions in work load were introduced by j6Alice Coleman. ‘Land use sutvev todav and tomorrow’, tn GeographYI yeiterdajr mapping only the areas- of special interest. Alternatively detailed and Tomorrow, ed E.H. Brown,ch 9, Royal mapping was restricted to a specific range of categories and only broad Geographical Society, Oxford University groupings given for the remainder. In The Gambia, for instance, there Press, Oxford, UK, 1980.

LAND USE POLICY January

1985

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are nine categories concerned with rice production or potential. with all other land uses classified under only seven heads. Some land use maps have been compiled from statistics rather than from field observations. These depart from the morphogram principle in favour of a chorogram approach in which averages or densities are mapped by administrative units instead of by the precise plots which each category occupies. Some East European countries have favourcd this approach (possibly because of ground intelligence restrictions). Air photographs offer obvious advantages in areas of Inaccessible terrain or where topographic surveys have not produced maps with sufficient land use boundaries. Photo material has been used in the land use surveys of Canada, Cyprus. Sierre Leone and Fiji for example. Another variant is the photo-map where names. Iinework and colour are overprinted on large scale photographic base material, as for example in Sweden’s 1: 10000. Even with supporting groundwork. however, difficulties arise in air photography with the identification of land uses. The limitations have led to the exploitation of infra-red and other wave lengths capable of penetrating cloud cover and extending the range of use types that can be identified. More recently earth satellite imagery has been added to the armoury of techniques for land USC data collection but analyses and identification is even more difficult.”

Computer graphics

17W.G.V. Balchin,

‘Data sources for land

use survey’, Land Use Policy, Vol 1, No 1, January 1984.

12

thoughts were directed towards the Early in the post-war period, possibilities of computer-aided cartography. By the late 1950s it seemed that computers might be used for drawing maps automatically. Some of the earliest attempts involved the use of the regular matrix of letter positions produced by the computer line printer to form sketch maps of the ‘crossword puzzle’ type. These were extremely limited because of the size of the individual letters which defined the minimum area that could be portrayed. The limitation disappeared, however, with the development of graph plotters and finally flat-bed plotting tables with an accuracy of one hundredth part of a millimetre. Before these could be fully used, it was necessary to convert the map data into a form suitable for storing in the computer. At first the storage or digitization was undertaken on magnetic tapes, each tape holding a feature such as a coastline or road pattern. This process was achieved by means of a digitizing table where lines were translated into streams of coordinates by an electronic stylus continuously and automatically generating coordinates of points which were then recorded. The tapes so obtained could be played back on the plotting table as required. In principle this is no different and in fact more complicated and expensive than a draughtsman drawing the map. All the detail has to be drawn before it can be digitized. The advantage comes when all the data have been digitized and collected together in the database (or data bank). Parts can then be selected and a map drawn for quick comparison fairly effortlessly. A known problem can be investigated expeditiously therefore. Data in the database are also easily updated or corrected. The computer can also be used to change the scale so that, for example. a coastline digitized from a 1:50000 map could be plotted at 1:2.50000 or any other scale within a considerable range. It has been found that in order to select features without undue delay, the data must be stored on a magnetic disc rather than magnetic tape. Because the disc is rotating

LAND USE POLICY January

1985

at a high speed any part of the information stored can be retrieved in a few thousandths of a second, whereas to find the same information on magnetic tape which has to be rewound and searched along its whole length may take many seconds. It is also possible to produce the ‘map’ on a visual display screen and this leads us to an alternative to mechanical plotting on paper where a light spot projector and photographic film are employed. The database tapes are read by a computer which controls the plotting table and the projector head. The head consists of a complicated light projector with a series of masks to make lines and symbols of different sizes and thicknesses. These are controlled by a shutter. The light-spot projector imprints the selected image on a sheet of photographic film placed on the plotter. Once set up the equipment will run unattended until the operation is complete. It is obvious that in an age of computerization and advanced telecommunications all kinds of interesting science-fiction-type possibilities emerge when this technology is linked with high altitude remote-sensing devices. But such possibilities are more appropriate to the 21st than to the 20th century. Currently computer-aided cartography is limited for land use study. While known problems can sometimes be expeditiously investigated by comparing selected information from the database, the latter cannot of its own accord reveal problems in the way that the human mind can after scanning a land use map in its totality. The human mind can do nothing with the database without the back-up hardware: the map on the other hand enshrines all the information and is directly understandable by the trained mind. Furthermore the complexities of land use in both the developed and developing world are such as to stretch computer capabilities to their limit. It will probably be a long time before the finesse of cartographic convention combined with colour representation can be approached by computer-aided processes. But for some purposes the computer will doubtless find its niche. Meanwhile the conventional and complete map, with or without overlays, remains essential.

Map interpretation

‘*H.G. Fordham, Surveyors and MapMakers of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,

UK, p 62.

LAND USE POLICY January 1985

is normally desirable. In either case of the be immeasurably improved by the verbal and quantitative approach published reports. Historically - for example the Norman Domesday is without maps, while the 17th century On the other of the later by written descriptions, albeit variable quality. It seems that to combine both approaches de Cabinet. Ix This map of the Austrian in the by Lt de Ferraris. It consists 275 sheets scale of 1: 11520 drawn by hand. Only three of the the basis of a to 2.5 sheets scale of 1:86400 in 1777 as the Carte Chorographique des Pays-Bas Autrichiens.

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The development

‘g/bid.

2oOpcit. Ref 12.

14

of land use

maps

The most remarkable feature of the original survey. however. was the descriptive memoir annexed to each of the 275 sheets. These made up 12 volumes of 4108 pages in all. After dealing with the geographical situation each memoir continued with an account of the geology, the character of the surface relief, the nature of the soil, the condition of the agriculture, the different species of timber and other trees, the cultivations, the agricultural and pastoral produce, the waste land and marshes. Where necessary, the industrial and commercial situation was examined; the number and kind of mills, forges and manufactories were followed by details of land and water communications. Finally. as might be expected in what was partly a military survey, there were complete notes about military matters pertinent to each sheet. The whole enterprise was clearly a most exacting and well founded Regionul Survey well in advance of its time. The next joint publication of a land USC map with supporting interpretative text emanates from the Ordnance Survey but unfortunately the text never got beyond the first volume. When the Survey turned its attention to covering Ireland it was proposed that a memoir be published for each parish. The first was that issued in 1837 for the parish of Templemore, County Londonderry.‘” This volume gives an account of the topography, geology, botany and zoology of the parish of Templemore, a description of the city of Londonderry and a history of the town-lands of the whole parish; with a third section dealing with statistics, social economy and manufacturers. It contains a large number of plans and other illustrations and is a magnificent prototype for a project which unfortunately immediately lapsed. Had it been continued it would have been comparable to the memoirs of the Ferraris map of the Low Countries. Additional unpublished material is still preserved in 50 boxes in the library of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, most relating to the counties of Antrim and Londonderry although data also exist for 19 out of the 32 Irish counties. The ‘Area’ books which the Ordnance Surveyors kept for the 1:2500 survey from 1855-X) could be regarded as the next development. Land use was certainly being recorded and published but no interpretation or explanation was being offered. Only about a quarter of England and Wales (mainly south-east England) and a third of Scotland (mainly the Lowland area) are covered by these books which seem to have been modelled on the specification for the Tithe Surveys as written into the 1836 Act. Geographers were well aware of the need for this combined approach to land use problems as is well illustrated by the paper which Hugh Robert Mill read to the Royal Geographical Society on 6 March 1X96. In this he proposed a complete geographical description of the British Islands based on Ordnance Survey maps. In Mill’s ‘New Ordnance Survey’ the scale was to be one inch to one mile, the sheets were to measure 18 by 12 inches and each was to be accompanied by a memoir. The magnitude of the scheme was clearly seen by Mill who allowed 20 years for its completion. Regrettably nothing came of Mill’s proposal but it might well have triggered Stamp into producing what was to be the next combined publication arising from the first Land Utilisation Survey of Britain in the 1930s. Here the 170 published maps on a scale of one inch to one mile were supported by 92 county reports and the well known concluding volume on The Land of Britain: Its Use and Misuse.*”

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January

1985

The developmenl

“Land Resources Development Centre, Overseas Development Administration, Surbiton, Tolworth Tower, Surrey, KT6 7DY, UK.

LAND USE POLICY

January 1985

of lund use maps

It is interesting to note that the county once again emerged as the unit for description and interpretation rather than the map per se. Generally each county report included an outline of the geology, relief, climate and soils followed by a consideration of land utilisation - arable and permanent grass, heathland, moorland and rough pasture, forests, gardens, settlement and unproductive land. Attempts are made to designate land use regions and the text is supported by statistics. Only Ferraris’ Carte de Cabinet and Stamp’s Land Utilisation Survey of Britain appear to have achieved completion of publication: in both cases exceptional dedication backed the projects and brought them to a successful conclusion. To complete this account of joint map and text publication mention should be made of two more recent publications. The Geographical Association, inspired no doubt by Mill’s original proposal, began publishing a series of booklets describing one inch Ordnance Survey maps under the title of British Landscapes through Maps. Booklets for sixteen sheets had been published before the Ordnance Survey changed the scale to 1:50000: three have appeared since. The I9 booklets all cover specially selected sheets or areas useful in teaching but with the death of the editor, Professor K.C. Edwards. it is doubtful if any further areas will be covered. The Geographical Association has also issued, in support of the Second Land Utilisation Survey of Britain directed in the I96Os by Miss Alice Coleman, a series of four booklets under the title of Patterns OH the Map. These show how the 120 published I:25000 maps of the Second Survey can be used and interpreted for teaching purposes. Specimen sheets (Plymouth, Methyr Tydfil. Leeds, Rosedale, Sevenoaks and Gravesend) have been thoroughly analysed. It is perhaps odd that the combined approach has flourished in British work for overseas territories. In the same way that Stamp seems to have inspired pre-war British Colonial possessions to request land use surveys from the Directorate of Overseas Survey, so also there seems to have been the inspiration for requests for land resource studies by the Land Resource Development centre of the Ministry of Overseas Development. The latter now has a long list of resource studies covering parts or the whole of Nigeria, Tanzania, Lesetho, Christmas Island, Botswana, The Gambia, Zambia, New Hebrides, Fiji, Belize, Bahamas, Nepal, British Solomon Islands, Sudan and the Seychelles. Many of these incorporate detailed land use studies supported by interpretative memoir descriptions.” Although many are small scale rather than large scale surveys all would doubtless have received the approval of the famous Colonel Thomas Colby who as long ago as 1837 wrote in the introduction to the Templemore volume of the Survey of Ireland; ‘It is scarcely necessary to remark that a map is in its nature but part of a Survey and that much of the information connected with it can only be advantageously embodied in a memoir, to which the map then serves as a graphic index’.

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