 peat pit (Länsstyrelsen Västerbotten, 2008).
Today, all hay is produced in fertilized fields, new ditching has essentially stopped, and peat extraction is minor. Mires are no longer considered to be assets for the rural population but are classified as ‘unproductive land’ (Nilsson et al., 2019). At the same time, mires are increasingly in focus as providers of ecosystem services for climate change mitigation, most importantly biodiversity, water regulation, and carbon sequestration (Joosten, 2015). To take full advantage of these services, mire dynamics must be understood, including a thorough knowledge of the long-lasting effects of former land use. However, our knowledge of the cumulative extent of such land use is limited. Here, we explore in detail the use of mires in a village territory in northern Sweden through an interdisciplinary combination of sources. We aim to identify the various types of land use, quantify the proportion of mires concerned, establish a timeline of impact, and discuss possible legacy effects. By doing so, we lay down a basis for further analyses of the dynamics of northern Swedish mires and their capacities for providing ecosystem services in a landscape marked by climate change.
The study area covers 1,839 ha in Vindeln Municipality, Västerbotten County, northern Sweden (Figure 1). It corresponds to the territory of the village of Abborrtjärn as it was defined through the procedure of enclosure (sw. ‘laga skifte’) in 1880 (see Sources section below). Almost all of the study area is included in the Krycklan Catchment, a research infrastructure for state-of-the-art hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological studies (Laudon et al., 2013).
Today, the study area consists of about 89% forest, 5% open mires, 3% arable land, and 3% water (Lantmäteriet, 2020b). When it comes to mires, the area is located in the southern subregion of the northern fen region, which covers most of northern Sweden and is characterized by relatively high humidity, a short growing season, abundant snow cover, and high groundwater tables (Joosten, Tanneberger, and Moen, 2017). According to data from the Swedish Wetland Survey, which covered all mires larger than 50 ha, the mires of the study area are mostly topogenous or soligenous fens, although northern bogs also make up a significant part (CAB Västerbotten, unpublished data). These are also the most common mire types in the subregion as a whole (Gunnarsson and Löfroth, 2014).
From a cultural perspective, the study area belongs to the inner part of the coastland of Västerbotten County. Before farmers settled, it is probable that indigenous Sami controlled the area and possibly also used the mires for grazing reindeer, but next to nothing is known of this early history (Norstedt and Laudon, 2019). The first scattered farming settlements were established along the Vindel River during the Middle Ages. The population then remained relatively stable until the mid-1700s, when a number of new settlements were created in the forest lands farther from the river (Bunte, Borgegård, and Gaunitz, 1982). The village in the focus of our study, Abborrtjärn, was one of these new settlements, established in 1778. Until then, the study area had been part of the zone of interest of the neighboring medieval village Degerfors (nowadays known as Vindeln) (Bunte, Borgegård, and Gaunitz, 1982; Egerbladh, 1972). Although agriculture remained the foundation of the region’s economy well into the 1900s, forestry became more and more important during the late 1800s, and the building of the railroad around 1890 stimulated various kinds of trade (Bunte, Borgegård, and Gaunitz, 1982). Today, only 9% of the population of Vindeln Municipality work in agriculture or forestry, whereas most people are in the manufacturing industry or in the public sector (Företagarna, 2020).
We have consulted a number of sources: 1) all historical maps we could find from both Abborrtjärn and surrounding villages, dating from the early 1700s to the 1920s (Lantmäteriet, 2020a); 2) ditching maps and plans, created for state-