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Impacts of hydrometeorological extremes in South Moravia based on documentary evidence
Chromá, Kateřina ; Dolák, Lukáš ; Brázdil, Rudolf ; Řezníčková, Ladislava
Hydrometeorological extremes have influenced human lives significantly in the past, just as they continue\nto do today. To analyse these influences in the past, information is needed from before the start of systematic\nmeteorological and hydrological observations. Documentary evidence constitutes a very rich source of\ninformation about past hydrometeorological extremes. This paper focuses on impacts of hydrometeorological\nextremes on agriculture and material property and their socio-economic consequences. It also discusses\nthe potential and limitations of such documentary evidence. Despite documentary evidence’s several\nlimitations (e.g. spatial and temporal uncertainty, uncertainty in the annual distribution of records, in\nthe type of extreme, etc.), it is a promising source of information useful for future studies.
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Documentary evidence as a source of data for studying droughts in the Czech lands
Řezníčková, Ladislava ; Brázdil, Rudolf ; Kotyza, O. ; Valášek, H.
Information about past droughts may be derived from the various kinds of documentary evidence. Documentary data are particularly applicable to the pre-instrumental period but may also be used for the overlapping period with instrumental records. They are extracted from written narrative sources, weather diaries, personal and official letters, newspapers, religious records, epigraphic sources, and other sources. Direct descriptions of weather facilitate identification of meteorological droughts, while descriptions of drought impacts are used to identify agricultural and hydrological droughts. Documentary evidence enabled the creation of series of precipitation indices which classify dry months on a scale of –1 (dry), –2 (very dry), and –3 (extremely dry). In this way, it is possible to study the frequency, seasonality, severity, and impacts of drought episodes in the pre-instrumental period.
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Documentary evidence in the study of past hydrometeorological extremes in South Moravia
Chromá, Kateřina ; Brázdil, Rudolf ; Valášek, H. ; Dolák, Lukáš ; Řezníčková, Ladislava
Information about hydrological and meteorological extremes (HMEs) in the instrumental period can be extended back into pre-instrumental times using documentary evidence from a variety of data sources. Financial and economic records, particularly those related to taxation data, are among the most important such sources. For the region of South Moravia, they are held by the Moravian Land Archives in the provincial capital of Brno and in certain equivalent state district archives that contain collections of estate accounts and family archives. Exploration of these sources provides information about HMEs in terms of dates and places of occurrence, courses, and impacts. Data of this kind from South Moravia were interpreted and included in a dedicated database, bringing the number of records of past HMEs to 2,010. This contribution demonstrates the high potential of this type of data.
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