Trevor-

There has been some research done on this but much of it is related to
smaller format documents than some of which you are speaking about.  

This is a link to research done by one 3rd party that HP, Kodak, Epson and
others have worked with http://goo.gl/jQKbW to validate their products.  

And although this is quite dated (1987) this is research done by UNESCO on
both ink and paper for long-term options  http://goo.gl/UFI1U  

Dating back as far as 2005, the printing industry was calling on ISO to
develop Standards on this issue, http://goo.gl/Gu6r2 but I have yet to see
anything coming out. 

If there is going to be anything done, it will likely come out of ISO TC42 
http://goo.gl/40o8q Work Group 5 is doing some work on photographic print
images, but I'm not seeing much on mapping/plats/land images.

The National Archives of Australia and others have dome work on preservation
of microforms  http://goo.gl/sS29z  and much research has been done into the
use of PDF as a stable format for electronic content. but with many
drawings, the issue is the size and scale of the source documents you start
with.  Even the process of direct imaging, which many times uses a drum-type
scanner can result in loss of stability of scale.  Flat bed scanners for
anything larger than 30" x 42" are becoming rather rare.

Larry
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