The significance of landscape relic zones in relation to soil conditions, settlement pattern and territories in Flanders

Since the 18th century and increasingly since the second half of the 20th century, the transformation of the ancient landscape structures has been devastating. In densely populated and highly industrialized areas, such as Flanders (Belgium), only fragments remain from the traditional landscapes of the end of the 18th century. The recently finalized Landscape Atlas of Flanders (2001) gives an inventory of these areas, which are called relic zones and still cover 39% of the country. Their spatial distribution shows a striking way the old communal borders in the periphery of the ancient territories of the villages. Land qualities related to different phases of land occupancy were defined based upon soil and landform. Ten soil associations were overlaid with the relic zone map using ArcView GIS. Distinct soil associations characterize the different historical landscape regions. The spatial correspondence between landscape regions, soil associations and relic zones showed that half of all designated relic zones correspond to at least three major phases and regions of landscape development. The proportion of relic zone areas is extremely low in the urban regions (2.1%), less than average in the sandy area's and higher than average in the polders, loamy regions and alluvial regions. The average patch size of the relic zones is 2.90 km2 for Flanders but varies from 0.13 to 24.35 km2. Overall fragmentation is 0.13 patches/km2 in Flanders, and this varies from 0.04 (loamy plateaus) to 0.19 (coastal zones). Sizes of communal territories in Flanders vary a lot and so do the eccentricity of the settlement site and the proportion of relic zone area in the territory. Larger territories are found in the sandy regions in the north and the west of Flanders and correspond to recent settlements in former forest areas and heath lands. The average CPA shape index (1.523) indicates that square to rectangular shapes are dominant. Most eccentric sites are situated in the larger territories in northern Flanders. Although, the average coverage of relic zone is about 39%, 45 of the 1086 settlement territories used, have no relic zone. The largest proportion (up to 99% of the communal area) is found in territories along the southern periphery of Flanders region. The landscape relics mapped in the Landscape Atlas of Flanders correspond mainly to more stable landscapes in the periphery of communal territories and to settlements located in the periphery of the Flanders region.