Lecture with Žiga Zwitter, Univ. of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Dep. of History, hosted by AAU, Institute of Social Ecology

The lecture discusses three main components of the material environmental history of Eastern Alpine semi-natural meadows and pastures in the changing 16th and 17th century environment as reported in archival sources: (1) site conditions and their changes, recorded either explicitly or implicitly, (2) species composition or at least plant characteristics which were important for agriculture or medicine, and (3) human interventions in grassland ecosystems, e.g. in hydrological conditions and in plant species composition. In order to broaden the understanding of 17th century environmental history, a GIS map will be presented, which combines (1) georeferenced areas of meadows as recorded in the first detailed land use maps from the early 19th century and (2) results of a lidar survey of a part of the Julian Alps, belonging to the Southern Limestone Alps. Read more →