Analyzing building stock using topographic maps and GIS.

Building stock is an extremely cost-intensive and long-lived component of the settlement structure. Considering its importance, the information available on building stock and its development is often inadequate. Data such as the age and structure of buildings, the number of dwelling units and floors are not comprehensively available nor sufficiently processed. In order to fill this gap, this paper presents a method for the calculation of settlement structure parameters by means of a spatial disaggregation through a combination of building data obtained from topographic maps 1:25 000, block boundaries taken from authoritative digital maps, and statistical data at municipality level. The inexpensive analogue maps are available nationwide and also for earlier time slices due to defined update intervals. The maps are scanned at high resolution and geo-referenced. The building stock, which is shown interspersed with traffic, vegetation and lettering... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]