Land-Use Dynamics at the Micro Level: Constructing and Analyzing Historical Datasets for the Portuguese Census Tracts

Historical census micro-data – data aggregated for small-areas – is of foremost importance as a tool for understanding detail patterns in the distribution of social phenomena. However, the non-coincidence of census tracts’ geometries for different years hampers the dynamic analysis of such information. This article applies a methodology which uses auxiliary geographical data to build coherent historical datasets when asymmetric mapping occurs due to incoherent geometries. This data serves as control zones which are the source of the computation of a weighting scheme which allows the re-allocation of data for common spatial units. An application to a municipality in the Southern coast of Mainland Portugal – Portimão – helps to show the usefulness of this analysis. Form, structure and functional attributes are combined within a coherent framework. Proximity measures are used to help to identify local patterns. The final outcome highlight the potential of both the methodology used and the historical dataset produced