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Csaplovics, Herbig, Börner 
2. THE NATIONAL PARK REGION NEUSIEDLER SEE 
Patterns of anthropozooic pressure on the land may be the result of continuous impact during time intervals of socio-economic transi 
tions or of short-termed impacts caused by changes in political systems often connected with periods of war. In both cases, as well as 
in the case of impact due to variations of regional parameters of climate, e.g. deficits in rainfall and/or variations in mean tempera 
tures, comparative methods of map analysis are effective tools for collecting information on regional landcover and landscape 
change. 
The Hungarian and Austrian borderlands of the region of Neusiedler See (Ferto To) have been formed by natural variations of the 
lake and its environments as well as by increasing influences of human impact, either by the multitude of historic events, which had 
their topographic focus somewhere around that important gate between the central and eastern parts of Europe, the south-east of 
Europe and the Orient, or by the efforts of transforming former grazing lands (puszta) and of draining the lake and its swamps for 
agro-industrial use. Changes of socio-economic and political factors have influenced these regions to a great extent. 
As historical maps are the earliest topographic documents of landcover and landuse and beyond it represent more or less precise 
descriptions of the landscape both geometrically and thematically, methods of analysing time series of maps can contribute to re 
search on the topochronological documentation of change as a response to varieties of human impact. 
Small scale maps of the 16 th , 17 th and 18 th centuries provide information on changes of the landscape related to the changing water 
levels of the Neusiedler See. 
Research on comparative analysis of changing shorelines of the lake as documented by time series of these historical maps and of 
archive documents of the same period, which describe the water level of the lake, show significant correlation. Preliminary results of 
this work have been presented some years ago (Csaplovics 1995). 
In the frame of this paper we want to concentrate on the discussion of two selected examples of topochronological analysis of time 
series of regional maps. 
The map of the district of Sopron (Odenburg) by Hegediis (about 1800) covers the lake as well as the west-, south- and south-east- 
bound regions, especially the swamps of the Hansag (Nagy 1977). 
The shoreline of the lake and the extension of the swamps coincide with a period of relatively high water levels, which lasted till 
about 1800. This map dates from a time, when first attempts to drain the lake and the swamps started and first proofs had been given, 
that large constructions for draining the lake had come within the bounds of possibility. The most spectacular project of that time was 
the construction of the dam crossing the swamps and thus connecting the Esterhazy palace at Fertod with the roads to Moson (Wie- 
selburg) and Posonyi (Bratislava, Pressburg) in about 1780. The map of Hegediis shows the dam bordering the very south-eastern 
shore of the lake. 
The subset of a Russian KFA-1000 satellite photography of 1991 covers the same region and represents the actual state of landcover 
that is dominated by heterogeneous patterns of agricultural landuse and vine growing. The large reed belt of the lake, as represented 
on the satellite photograph, was completely covered by open water at the end of the 18 lh century. The swamps have been drained 
from the end of the 19 th century up to now. Quad-shaped areas of alder forests and grasslands remain as relics of the extensive low 
land moor. The open water areas and the reed belt of the south-eastern part of the lake as well as the remaining areas of the former 
lowland moor of the Hansag are nowadays the primary zones of the Austrian and Hungarian National Parks (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). 
Fig. 1: Subset of the map of the district of Sopron by J. Nep. 
Hegediis (about 1800) (Sopron Varmegye / Comitatus Sopro- 
niensis / Juxta Delineat. J. Nep. Hegediis Ord. Geom.) 
Fig. 2: Subset of a space borne KFA-1000 photograph (date of 
acquisition: July 12 th 1991, orbit height: 275km, spectral reso 
lution: R, n-IR due to two-layer film SN-10, geometric resolu 
tion: appr.7m-8m) 
The second time series present a subset of a sheet of the 3 rd nation-wide campaign of topographic mapping initiated under the reign 
of the emperor Franz-Joseph I. and carried out from 1869 to 1892, and from 1872 to 1880 for the regions of western Hungary respec 
tively (Franzisko-Josephinische Landesaufnahme, 1:25000) (Haradauer 1887). 
This subset is topochronologically analysed in comparison with a very high-resolution plot-accurate landcover interpretation based 
on CIR-aerial photography of 1979. The landuse patterns have changed dramatically during 110 years. Grazing lands (Podersdorfer 
Haide) have been transformed to fields belonging to agro-industrial estates representative for the region east of the lake. Most of 
these fields are intensively cultivated for monoculture cropping of maize. A large number of small lakes typical for this region has 
been drained, such as the Grundlacke, which appears as a relic of wetland, intersected by gravel pits, which have been exploited 
down to the water table and then remained open, thus often being used as illegal waste disposal sites, and surrounded by drained 
areas used for cropping. The quality of visual stereoscopic aerial photo-interpretation remains unbroken, as mapped details like soli-