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Flood Events of Selected European Rivers in the Sixteenth Century

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Abstract

The severity and frequency of sixteenth-century floods of the Rhine, the Main, the middle and upper Elbe with its tributaries, rivers of northern and central Italy, the Garonne and rivers in Catalonia and Andalusia are analyzed using documentary evidence. The basic topographical and hydrological characteristics of the rivers investigated as well as the synoptic causes of their flooding during the instrumental period are presented. Different examples of modifications of the run-off process due to anthropogenic activity are discussed. Prevalence in flood occurrence during the second half of the sixteenth century in comparison to the first half is typical for central European and Andalusian rivers (mainly in the 1560s and 1590s) and agrees with the evolution of precipitation patterns. On the other hand, Italian and Catalonian rivers, in part, had a higher occurrence of floods during the first half of the century. Changes in the flooding seasons in both halves of the century are not unambiguous. Results of an analysis on a broader European scale show floods to be a random natural phenomena with limited areal extent defined by the spatial influence of forcing meteorological factors (continuous heavy rains, sudden melting of thick snow cover, etc.). Despite some limitations of documentary evidence, series of reconstructed historical floods are valuable sources of proxy data which can be utilized for the study of the flooding fluctuations in the pre-instrumental period.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Rudolf Brázdil & Petr Dobrovolný

  2. Institute of Geography, University of Würzburg, Germany

    Rüdiger Glaser

  3. Institute of History, University of Bern, Switzerland

    Christian Pfister

  4. Institute of Geography, University of Toulouse-Le Mirail, France

    Jean-Marc Antoine

  5. Department of Physical Geography, University of Barcelona, Spain

    Mariano Barriendos

  6. CNR-ICTIMA, National Research Council, Padua, Italy

    Dario Camuffo

  7. Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

    Mathias Deutsch

  8. CNR-ISPAM, National Research Council, Venice, Italy

    Silvia Enzi

  9. Storia Geofisica Ambiente, Bologna, Italy

    Emanuela Guidoboni

  10. Museum of Local History, Litoměřice, Czech Republic

    Oldřich Kotyza

  11. Department of Applied Physics, University of Almería, La Cañadá de San Urbano, Spain

    Fernando Sanchez Rodrigo

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  1. Rudolf Brázdil
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Brázdil, R., Glaser, R., Pfister, C. et al. Flood Events of Selected European Rivers in the Sixteenth Century. Climatic Change 43, 239–285 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005550401857

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