Digital adaptation of the Geomorphological Map of Upper Silesian Industrial Region, Poland (1:50,000) – old map new possibilities

Abstract

The paper is a brief description which discusses the stages of the digital adaptation of the printed version of old geomorphological map. It was paid attention to difficulties and errors that arose during work (incompatibility adjacent sheets, problems with distinguishing of the particular landforms, lack of some landforms). As a result, a geodatabase with 30 vector layers was obtained depicting all relief forms on the original map. The uniqueness of this map arise due to anthropogenic relief forms placed on it. It was extremely important because the mapped area was very strongly transformed by economic human activity. It was decided to compare recorded anthropogenic landforms with maps from other periods (1890, 1993 and 2014). As a result, it was possible to trace spatial and quantitative changes of selected anthropogenic forms on this. In general, between 1890 and 2014, all anthropogenic forms increased with the largest share of the anthropogenic flats.