Historic grasslands along watercourses in Flanders

The GIS layer ‘Historical grasslands along Watercourses in Flanders’ is a digital anchoring of a mapping of grassland vegetation carried out in the years 1957 to 1960, along a number of important watercourses in Flanders. In total, more than 35,000 hectares were carved. The mapping is described in detail in Andries & Van Slycken (1962). The aim of the study was to visualise the agricultural value of grasslands The data would allow targeted measures to improve their agricultural value. The historical mapping gives an overview of the situation in valley areas prior to the important water domestic interventions in valley areas in the 1950s and 1960s. It is therefore particularly valuable and the maps form a unique historical document because information was collected in a uniform manner on large surfaces, almost flat-covered. The mapping was carried out by the National Centre for Grassland and Green Feed Research, a precursor to the ILVO and funded by the IWT. The digitalisation was carried out by INBO.