Potential of Documentary Evidence to Study Fatalities of Hydrological and Meteorological Events in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This paper presents the potential of documentary evidence for enhancing the study of fatalities taking place in the course of hydrological and meteorological events (HMEs). Chronicles, “books of memory”, weather diaries, newspapers (media), parliamentary proposals, epigraphic evidence, systematic meteorological/hydrological observations, and professional papers provide a broad base for gathering such information in the Czech Republic, especially since 1901. The spatiotemporal variability of 269 fatalities in the Czech Republic arising out of 103 HMEs (flood, flash flood, windstorm, convective storm, lightning, frost, snow/glaze-ice calamity, heat, and other events) in the 1981–2018 period is presented, with particular attention to closer characterisation of fatalities (gender, age, cause of death, place, type of death, and behaviour). Examples of three outstanding events with the highest numbers of fatalities (severe frosts in the extremely cold winter of 1928/1929, a flash flood on 9 June 1970, and a rain flood in July 1997) are described in detail. Discussion of results includes the problem of data uncertainty, factors influencing the numbers of fatalities, and the broader context. Since floods are responsible for the highest proportion of HME-related deaths, places with fatalities are located mainly around rivers and drowning appears as the main cause of death. In the further classification of fatalities, males and adults clearly prevail, while indirect victims and hazardous behaviour are strongly represented.

Fatalities associated with the severe weather conditions in the Czech Republic, 2000–2019

“…In particular, he mentioned 96 fatalities for the 2005-2015 period (42 -floods, 21 -flash floods, 16 -frost and snow, 9 -windstorms, 6 -lightning and avalanches, 2 -landslides), a gross underestimate considered against the 406 fatalities for these six categories in our database for the same period. A very preliminary database of weather-related fatalities in the Czech Republic that appears in Brázdil et al (2019b) included only 181 fatalities for 2000-2018, compared to the 1145 casualties herein. The numbers of floodrelated fatalities in the Czech Republic mentioned by Brázdová (2012), 56 for 2000, and 65 for 2000reported by Punčochář (2015, are significantly lower than those in our database (81 and 103 fatalities respectively).…”

“…Czech flood fatality data also appeared in the EUFF database and were worked upon by Petrucci et al (2019a). Brázdil et al (2019b) analysed the potential of documentary data in the study of weatherrelated fatalities and presented preliminary results for the 1981-2018 period.…”

Evaluating the utility of qualitative personal diaries in precipitation reconstruction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

“…No single index system is universally used when converting qualitative weather information into quantitative data, although often a five-or seven-point scale, such as that used by Nash et al (2016), is utilised. Indices are generally not used for daily weather data, although Brázdil et al (2019b) calculated monthly days of rainfall for a set of weather diaries and converted these to a 7 • index using a regular distribution of ranked monthly totals (assigning the highest and lowest 8.3 % of values an index value of 3 or −3 and assigning a further 16.6 % of values to each of intermediate index classes, as suggested by Pfister, 1992). Since these types of index rely on the concept of "normal", they can be difficult to apply to daily weather data, particularly when working with subjective personal accounts.…”

“…The 9 July 1801 described by Richard Wilkes Unett as "A very hot summers day" (D3610/12/3) was assigned a value of 0. Additionally, an index based on days of rainfall per month was considered, as used by several previous studies (for example Ayre et al, 2015;Brázdil et al, 2019b;Lee and MacKenzie, 2010). Two versions of this index are tested: one that assigned each day a value of 0 for no rain, very light rain, or fog or a value of 1 for any considerable rainfall (index B) and a second which introduced nuance, aiming to capture the heaviness of the rainfall (index C).…”

Evaluating the utility of qualitative data in precipitation reconstruction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

“…There have been many studies of weather diaries i.e. daily records primarily concerned with the weather (Brázdil et al, 2019a;Domínguez-Castro et al, 2015;Druckenbrod et al, 2003;Sanderson, 2018;Walsh et al, 1999), with the earliest such diary being kept in 1337-1344 (Lawrence, 1972), and weather information often recorded alongside related information, such as tides (Woodworth, 2006).…”