English summary

The purpose of this report has been to elaborate consistent inventories of land-use in Denmark from the end of the nineteenth century up until today. It is the first time that such a detailed inventory has been made using both historical and contemporary data sources. The foundation of the data is described and compared regarding applied definitions of land use classes.

 

Our inventory shows the following main tendencies in land-use:

 

• Up until the 1960s the total agricultural area (in Danish: “agerland”) increased slightly, after which it decreased slightly. Today the agricultural area (including fallow land) makes up approximately 60 % of the total land area. In the beginning of the 1990s land in rotation was reduced significantly while there was a substantial increase in fallow land.

 

• Forested areas (in Danish: “skov”) have been steadily increasing since the end of the nineteenth century. Forests made up 4.5 % of Denmark’s total land area in 1866, 10 % in 1951 and 11 % in 2000. The increase is mainly due to afforestation of conifer plantations. A minor increase of areas with deciduous trees occurred from the beginning of the 1990s.

 

• All open natural and semi-natural habitat types (in Danish: “lysåbne arealer”) have been reduced drastically since the end of the nineteenth century and up until today. In 1888 the open natural areas made up almost 25 % of the total land area while it was less than 10 % in 2000. Included in the definition of open natural areas are: wet grasslands (“fersk eng”), dry/mesic open grasslands (“overdrev”), coastal meadows (“strandeng”), scrub heathlands (“hede”), mires (“mose”) and sand and dunes (“klit”). All of these habitat types have decreased significantly, which is mainly due to the fact that they have lost their importance regarding grazing and hay harvesting etc., and they have been ploughed up, drained, afforested or built-up.

 

• The built-up areas (i.e. human settlements, buildings, transport networks etc.; in Danish “Bebyggede arealer”) have increased tremendously during the entire period; from about 3 % of the total land area in 1881 to 10 % in 2000.

 

The results are an important part of the quality assurance of existing land use inventories and will be of importance for a future standardizing of the land use inventories in Denmark.

 

Full report   i pdf-format (2,132 kB)