Digital Reconstruction of a Historical Urban Landscape Using Multi-Layer Cartographic Analysis: Case Study of Sumy City, Ukraine

The anthropogenic transformation of modern European cities over the past centuries has been characterized by a gradual transition from a natural defensive landscape to a dense modern urban structure. This study aims to reconstruct the historical urban landscape of Sumy (Ukraine) by integrating archival cartographic materials into a digital three-dimensional model to support heritage preservation and post-war urban planning. The proposed methodology combines retrospective source analysis, comparative cartographic assessment, and GIS-based georeferencing. These approaches are used to evaluate the accuracy, scale, and reliability of historical maps. The study analyzed 18 archival maps of the city of Sumy covering the period from the 1670s to 2025. A comparative assessment enabled the selection of 4 representative cartographic sources for reconstructing the historical urban landscape. A GIS-based methodology for georeferencing archival maps was developed and validated in QGIS v.3.44.11. It used the Google Hybrid basemap in the WGS 84/Pseudo-Mercator coordinate reference system (CRS) with identifier EPSG:3857. The methodology employed a first-order affine transformation, a cubic resampling kernel (4 × 4), and 15 stable ground control points (GCPs). This ensured spatial compatibility between historical cartographic materials, contemporary geospatial datasets, and topographic-geodetic reference frameworks. The proposed approach achieved an RMS georeferencing error of 2–9 m, depending on the historical period, the accuracy, and the scale of the original cartographic sources. Furthermore, the methodology enabled the identification of three classes of anthropogenic landscape transformation (minimal, moderate, and critical). As a result, it provided a comprehensive spatio-temporal representation of the historical evolution of the urban landscape. The resulting 3D model provides a reliable geospatial framework for documenting the historical morphology of Sumy and supports future interdisciplinary studies in heritage conservation, urban planning, and post-war reconstruction. The proposed methodology can also be applied to other historical cities where archival cartographic materials constitute the primary source for reconstructing long-term landscape evolution.