The 100-Year Series of Weather-Related Fatalities in the Czech Republic: Interactions of Climate, Environment, and Society

Abstract

The paper investigates weather-related fatalities over the territory of the Czech Republic in the 100-year period from 1921 to 2020. The unique database, created from documentary evidence (particularly newspapers), includes, for each deadly event, information about the weather event, the fatality itself, and related circumstances. A total of 2729 fatalities were detected during the 100-year period and were associated with various weather categories including frost (38%), convective storms (19%), floods (17%), fog (11%), snow and glaze ice (8%), windstorms (5%), and other inclement weather (2%). A detailed analysis was performed for each individual category. Fatalities occurred throughout the country, with a main maximum in winter (January) and a secondary maximum in summer (July), corresponding to the occurrence of extreme weather. Deaths were mainly interpreted as direct, caused by freezing to death/hypothermia or drowning, and occurred in the afternoon and at night in open countryside or on rivers and water bodies. Males outnumbered females, and adults outnumbered children and the elderly. Hazardous behavior was more frequent than non-hazardous behavior among victims. The information on fatalities and the structure of their characteristics strongly reflects historical milestones of the country, political and socioeconomic changes, as well as changes in lifestyle. Although important weather effects were observed on the deadliest events, the character of the data did not allow for clear evidence of the effects of long-term climate variability.

Demographic yearbooks as a source of weather-related fatalities: The Czech Republic, 1919–2022

“…This indicates that fatalities related to excessive natural heat in demographic yearbooks were likely classified under other disease/cause categories according to the international list and do not reflect the actual numbers. A similar situation is observed with fatalities caused by natural disasters, as evident from a comparison with data in Brázdil et al (2023a). For instance, the 126 fatalities reported in Czech demographic yearbooks (1931-2020) constitute only 21.0 % of the 600 fatalities reported in the 490 cited study.…”

“…The numbers of weather-related fatalities from demographic yearbooks can be partially compared with those in a specific fatality database of the Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno (IGMU), primarily compiled from documentary evidence (mainly newspapers) and used by Brázdil et al (2023a) for their study of weather-related fatalities in the CR during the 1921-2020 period. As expected, the IGMU database covers only a smaller percentage of the fatalities reported in CSO 495 data: 22.4 % for lightning fatalities, 13.3 % for falls on ice or snow , 11.8 % for excessive natural cold, and 8.6 % for excessive natural heat.…”

Multi-Level Data Analyses for Characterizing Rainfall-Induced Landslide Scenarios: The Example of Catanzaro Municipality (South Italy)

“…Official territorial agencies devoted to systematically collecting data on landslide activations are rare, as shown in a recent study that used the Historical Landslide Catalog provided by the Central Geological Survey in Taiwan [10]. In the majority of cases, data on historical landslides must be gathered from documentary sources, especially from newspapers, as are often used in research on fatalities caused by extreme events [15]. In municipal archives, documents on both slope movements and mitigation work can be found and proficiently organized into a geodatabase useful for landslide modelling to increase people's awareness of landslide risks [16].…”