This metadata refers to the vector dataset digitised from the historical military topographical map series: "Lower and Upper Austria – Second military survey of the Habsburg Empire" covering a period from 1819-1869. The focus has been on the Danube river basin area where this metadata covers the first of three pilot areas.
This pilot-1 area (Traun river – Upper Austria) covers appoximately 5,000 km2 distributed in 10 scanned historical map tiles in scale 1:28,800 provided by Arcanum Maps services:
(https://maps.arcanum.com/en/). Hydrographic features were identified in the historical maps supported by the legend information (https://www.arcanum.com/media/uploads/mapire/legend/secondsurvey1.pdf). The feature classes and attributes specified were used as basis in the digitisation process. The characteristics of the pilot-1 is Mountainous area and low land area. The Copernicus Land product Riparian Zones (RZ) layer for the reference year 2018 was used as a mask when digitising, representing 1,414km2 of the total area.
The objective with this dataset is to support the process of restoring Europe's free flowing rivers as part of the EU's biodiversity strategy for 2030 (https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/biodiversity-strategy-2030_en). The strategy aims to put Europe's biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030, and contains specific actions and commitments. Among them, the restoration of 25,000 km of rivers through removals of dams, channels, barriers, etc. is highlighted. The dataset clearly visualise the hydrographic features complemented in the military maps in the past. Visualised with contemporary data it provides an overview of the changes made. The high complexity of the branched rivers is very interesting since they correspond to rivers in its natural state.
This pilot may help to better understand the possibilities of developing quantitative measurements that allow for better "identification" of areas suitable for restoration.