Relationships between precipitation and floods in the fluvial basins of Central Spain based on documentary sources from the end of the 16th century

Abstract

Abstract. This study presents the results of a historic reconstruction based upon documentary sources of precipitation and floods during the last fifty years of the 16th century in Central Spain. We used data from primary sources contemporary to the events rather than compilations or secondary references. These documents belong to the institutions that administered the study area during the time period of interest and consist of municipal or monastic minute books and administrative texts from properties belonging to the nobility and royal family. Direct data that explicitly describe meteorological or flood-related events are haphazardly distributed throughout personal correspondence and various reports, and the sizes of floods or precipitation events can also be deduced from indirect data. We analysed the qualitative data by transforming them into numerical indices of intensity/duration for precipitation and intensity/area for floods. We differentiated three sets of years that presented different hydrological patterns. The first period, from 1554 to 1575, exhibited regular precipitation patterns associated with low-intensity floods. The second, from 1576 to 1584, was characterised by low precipitation levels and few floods. The third, from 1585 to 1599, showed intense precipitation with large floods interspersed with long-lasting droughts. We interpret these results in the context of the environmental and land-use patterns of the time period studied, which coincided with a period of low temperatures.

The use of taxation records in assessing historical floods in South Moravia, Czech Republic

“…In the light of such classifications of floods as those presented by, for example, Sturm et al (2001), Barriendos and Coeur (2004) and Bullón (2011), interpretation of the flood severity for South Moravian rivers would be highly speculative and direct comparison impossible. Indeed, in the latter, only seldom does any comparison appear of the water level of a given flood with that of some previous event.…”

“…Contributions address individual disastrous floods (Thorndycraft et al, 2006;Kiss, 2009b;Brázdil et al, 2010a;Elleder, 2010;Wetter et al, 2011) or compile and analyse long-term flood chronologies, often combining floods derived from documentary sources with those from continuous hydrological measurements (Sturm et al, 2001;Benito et al, 2003;Mudelsee et al, 2003Mudelsee et al, , 2006Brázdil et al, 2005Brázdil et al, , 2011cBarriendos and Rodrigo, 2006;Glaser et al, 2010;Macdonald and Black, 2010;Schmocker-Fackel and Naef, 2010;Bullón, 2011;Kiss and Laszlovszky, 2013;Macdonald, 2013;Rohr, 2013). These papers usually gather information about the frequency, seasonality, severity, synoptic origins and human impacts of historical floods.…”

Flood frequency analysis of historical flood data under stationary and non-stationary modelling

“…The next period in terms of flood magnitude corresponds to 1560-1611 with seven floods; four reached a minimum discharge of 400 m 3 s −1 and the largest (May, 1611) over 950 m 3 s −1 . During the 16th century, intense precipitation with large floods alternating with severe drought occurred from 1585 to 1599 (Bullón, 2011). A third historical flood period corresponds to 1739-1750 with seven flood events, three of which yielded values of minimum discharge over 350 m 3 s −1 , and the largest (December 1747) with an estimated minimum discharge of 750 m 3 s −1 (Fig.…”

Hydrological and meteorological extremes derived from taxation records: the estates of Brtnice, Třebíč and Velké Meziříčí, 1706–1849

“…Various classifications of phenomena intensity have been developed, though mainly for floods (see Sturm et al 2001, Barriendos and Coeur 2004, Bullón 2011. Simple transfer of this classification to the HMEs studied is impossible and similar classification of extremes can be developed only based on much larger data sets than available here.…”