Session Information
| Session | Poster Session | | Date | Monday (2008-04-07) | | Time | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM | | Room | Grand Terrace |
Presentation Information
| Presenter | Timothy Kennedy | | Title | Creating and analyzing digital land parcelization histories to better understand landscape change | | Affiliation | Center for Land Use Education, UW-Stevens Point | | Authors | Timothy Kennedy, Dan McFarlane | | Keywords | Historic parcel mapping, Land ownership, Methodology, Parcel patterns, Parcelization | | Presentation Type | Poster | Abstract:
In this research, we sought to document and analyze the rate and spatial pattern of land parcelization in a set of rural Wisconsin communities. Land parcels constitute a fundamental but largely invisible dimension for understanding land ownership, uses, and resulting landscape patterns. Current tax and ownership parcel maps are increasingly available in digital format at a range of scales, but historic parcel maps are largely confined to paper documents and are therefore difficult to employ for sophisticated spatial and temporal analyses common to landscape ecology. To overcome this barrier, we developed a method for accurately reconstructing parcel maps from earlier time periods by employing both paper plat maps and municipal tax rolls. Tax rolls were necessary for mapping small-lot subdivisions that are generally excluded from plat map books. This poster illustrates key steps in our methodology for recreating parcel maps in digital format and communicates some of our findings. Analysis of town-level parcelization in an exurban agricultural region shows that the overall rate of parcelization has generally decreased since 1950. Distinct spatial-temporal patterns of parcelization are evident, patterns that a simple count or averaging of parcel sizes would be unable to convey. Prior to the early 1970s, small parcels were generally limited to the immediate riparian areas at lakes found in this exurban region. More recently, off-lake residential subdivisions have been the source of a larger share of new, small parcels. In one town, we found evidence that government land acquisitions, while somewhat consolidating ownership parcels under state title, actually generated additional tax parcels from remainder properties. We conclude by pointing to several lines of research available for integrating parcelization histories with landscape histories to better understand human dimensions of landscape ecology. |
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