BALTIC FORESTRY VALIDATION OF MEDIUM-SCALE HISTORICAL MAPS OF SOUTHERN latvia /.../ A. FESCENKO ET AL. Validation of Medium-Scale Historical Maps of Southern Latvia for Evaluation of Impact of Continuous Forest Cover on the Present-Day Mean Stand Area and Tree Species Richness ANDA FESCENKO1,2,3 *, MARTINS LUKINS1,2 AND ILJA FESCENKO1 1University of Latvia, 19 Rainis Boulevard, Riga LV-1586, Latvia 2Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava”, 111 Rigas str., Salaspils LV-2169, Latvia 3Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zurcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland *Corresponding author, e-mail:
[email protected] Fescenko, A. *, Lukins, M. and Fescenko, I. 2016. Validation of Medium-Scale Historical Maps of Southern Latvia for Evaluation of Impact of Continuous Forest Cover on the Present-Day Mean Stand Area and Tree Species Richness. Baltic Forestry 22(1): 51-62. Abstract Medium-scale historical maps are often the only cartographic source of former forest area distribution on a regional level. In conjunction with a database of the current distribution of species or functional traits, maps may be valuable tool for studying the impact of previous land use on ecosystems. In this study a heterogeneous set of historical maps was used to reconstruct the multi-temporal pattern of the forest area in a moderately forested region (5,180 km2) of southern Latvia during the last 220 years. Changes in the total forest cover were assessed in four time slices and compared with available historical statistical data. To validate the obtained multi- temporal data for ecological studies, the impact of continuous forest cover on the present-day mean stand area and tree species richness derived from the forest inventory database of 94,886 stands was quantified by bivariate and regression analyses.