Data-driven methods—including spatial analysis and statistical modelling of spatiotemporal information—can detect patterns of change over time, informing how resources were allocated and adaptive strategies developed over time. Results from case studies can detect how social, built environment, and infrastructure systems (co-)evolved, contributing to a deeper understanding of systemic change in hazard-prone areas. At the same time, Indigenous perspectives, community-based approaches, and participatory methodologies can enhance the resilience of vulnerable populations, improve understanding of past fire stewardship, and foster sustainable responses to climate change in the twenty-first century.
This session explores how societies have historically responded to climate-related hazards and environmental challenges. Key themes include, but are not limited to:
• Historical perspectives on climate variability and societal change
• Cultural pyroscapes: landscapes shaped by the interactions between societies and fire
• Case studies of resilience in ancient and medieval societies
• The development of adaptive strategies in relation to urbanisation processes
• Indigenous knowledge and adaptive strategies
• Technological innovations and agricultural practices change over time
• Adaptive strategies for responding to historical hazards and their transformation
• Case studies on the (co-)evolution of social and environmental systems in hazard-prone areas
The history of colonial India is deeply intertwined with the history of famines. During British rule, an estimated 60 to 85 million people perished in over 30 famines, with their frequency and intensity peaking in the latter half of the nineteenth century—an era often referred to as the "high noon" of British imperialism. By this time, India had become the most famine-prone region in the world. Scholars have long debated the causes of these famines, attributing them variously to extreme weather events, market failures, or colonial governance. Traditional famine studies have often polarized these causes into "natural" versus "man-made" factors. However, recent advances in historical disaster studies emphasize famines as complex phenomena arising from the interaction between natural hazards and societal vulnerabilities.
This paper examines the 1873–74 famine in Bihar, a unique case in the history of colonial famines due to its relatively low mortality despite a significant natural hazard. Contemporary accounts describe the drought and subsequent grain yield losses as severe, yet the societal impact was mitigated by a combination of social, economic, and political factors.
The study begins by reconstructing the natural hazard—the drought—using a combination of paleoclimatic and instrumental data, alongside qualitative meteorological evidence from archival records. It then evaluates the vulnerability and resilience of the affected society over time, focusing on key indicators such as shifts in real wages, cash-crop production, and access to common property resources. Special attention is given to the most vulnerable groups, including landless laborers, lower castes, and women, whose experiences reveal the "root causes" and dynamic pressures shaping vulnerability in both the medium and long term.
Finally, the paper explores the role of famine relief policies and private initiatives in mitigating the disaster's impact. By analyzing these factors, the study sheds light on why the Bihar famine of 1873–74 resulted in lower mortality compared to preceding and subsequent famines, offering valuable insights into the interplay of hazards, vulnerability, and resilience in colonial India.
How to cite: Bauer, R.: Hazards, Vulnerability, and Resilience in Colonial India: The Bihar Famine of 1873–74, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-139, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-139, 2026.
Existing large-N quantitative research on historical human–environment interactions has predominantly focused on the detrimental impacts of climate variability on social stability, economic performance, and the collapse of civilizations. In contrast, this study shifts the analytical lens toward the resilience strategies that human societies historically employed to adapt to environmental stressors. Specifically, we examine the role of agricultural innovation, namely, the introduction of high-yield American crops, as a key mechanism of social resilience during periods of climatic extremes.
Focusing on the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, we investigate how the diffusion of four American crops—maize, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and potatoes—shaped the relationship between hydroclimatic extremes (floods and droughts) and Malthusian catastrophes, including famines and wars. Drawing on data from 3,071 local gazetteers across 236 prefectures, we employ a spatial Durbin model to assess both the direct and spatial spillover effects of crop adoption on societal outcomes during periods of environmental stress.
Our results reveal that the introduction of American crops significantly mitigated the incidence of Malthusian crises, although the effects varied by crop type and climatic condition. Maize and peanuts were particularly effective in reducing the occurrence of wars during flood years, while peanuts, sweet potatoes, and potatoes were associated with reduced famine incidence during droughts. Regional analysis further indicates that the mitigating effects were especially pronounced in the southwestern mountainous regions and that spillover effects were strongest in the central-eastern rice cultivation zone.
These findings highlight the critical role of agricultural diversification in enhancing societal resilience to climate shocks. By uncovering the regionally differentiated impacts of specific crops, this study contributes to a more nuanced and context-sensitive understanding of the historical human–environment nexus and the adaptive capacities of agrarian societies in the face of climatic extremes.
How to cite: Lee, H. F.: Measuring the Effectiveness of American Crop Adoption in Reducing Famines and Wars During Climate Extremes in Late Imperial China, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21960, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21960, 2026.
Southeast Asia (SEA) is one of the world’s most climate vulnerable regions, where rising temperatures, sea-level rise, and erratic rainfall patterns are intensifying climate-induced extreme events such as floods, tropical cyclones, heatwaves, droughts, and landslides. Rapid urbanization, high population density in coastal and river-delta areas, and strong reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods (especially agriculture and aquaculture) amplify vulnerability and create cascading risks across food systems, health, infrastructure, and livelihoods. At the same time, SEA’s diverse geographies and governance structures mean that climate resilience is uneven across region not only by physical exposure, but also by inequality, access to services, social protection, and institutional capacity. This research focuses on historical studies of resilience to climate hazards in Southeast Asia to address gaps in understanding long-term socio-ecological adaptation and knowledge integration. This study aimed to evaluate historical resilience strategies, benchmark traditional ecological knowledge integration, identify community-based adaptive practices, analyze socio-political influences, and compare methodological approaches. A systematic analysis of interdisciplinary literature spanning in the last two decades across Southeast Asia was conducted, incorporating qualitative ethnography, archival research, paleoenvironmental proxies, and quantitative modeling. Findings reveal robust integration of indigenous knowledge with scientific data enhancing adaptive capacity, though knowledge erosion and policy marginalization persist. Socio-cultural and political contexts of SEA critically shape climate resilience, yet detailed institutional analyses remain limited. Methodological diversity enriches insights but faces challenges in data validation and standardization. On the other hand, community-based and locally-led adaptive practices demonstrate both incremental and transformative resilience. However, scalability and intergenerational transmission are threatened by socio-economic dynamics. This synthesis underscores the value of long-term, multi-method perspectives in capturing resilience dynamics while highlighting the need for deeper institutional engagement and improved knowledge co-production frameworks. These findings inform culturally grounded, historically informed climate resilience policies that recognize complex socio-ecological interactions and support sustainable adaptation across temporal and spatial scales in SEA and beyond.
How to cite: Kabir, Md. H.: Long-Term Perspectives on Climate Hazard Resilience in Southeast Asia: Communities, Institutions, and Knowledge Systems, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-4854, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-4854, 2026.
The Yellow River Basin, a cradle of Chinese civilization, has been persistently shaped by natural disasters such as floods and droughts. This study explores how these recurrent hazards acted as catalysts for developing profound civilizational resilience. We analyze this resilience through three integrated adaptive dimensions: agricultural innovations (e.g., water-efficient farming and irrigation systems), technological advancements (e.g., hydraulic engineering and flood management), and evolving governance philosophies and collective ideologies for disaster response. These strategies, formed over millennia, facilitated not only immediate hazard mitigation but also long-term socio-ecological sustainability, transforming vulnerabilities into drivers of cultural and institutional development. The historical experience of the Yellow River Basin provides a seminal case for understanding long-term human-environment interactions and offers valuable insights for building resilience in contemporary disaster risk reduction frameworks.
How to cite: He, H.: Historical Disasters and Civilizational Resilience in the Yellow River Basin, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10041, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10041, 2026.
Societies in coastal regions are vulnerable to rising sea levels and increasingly destructive extreme weather. These threats lie outside recent experience and resemble environmental challenges that maritime empires (~1500-1850 CE) dealt with in unfamiliar tropical climates in the Indian Ocean. Here, we focus on exploring past hydroclimatic variability from proxy records and its links to vulnerability and resilience of the built environment in the coastal enclave of Goa in western India from an archaeo-historical perspective. The Portuguese capture of Goa in 1510 and the subsequent expansion of its main city into the capital of the Portuguese eastern empire, combined with its eventual decline and abandonment, represents an ideal case to demonstrate the success and failings of environmental management over 350 years.
We assess how colonial administrations managed their impact on local climates based on the interventions they made into local infrastructure, and what measures they took to ameliorate or adapt to changes in ecosystem services. Assessing vulnerability and resilience is based on the management strategies the archaeo-historic record reveals. Does the evidence point to vulnerability because of mismanagement, as observed for example in the eventual evacuation of the Portuguese capital city of Old Goa for the more salubrious Panjim (modern Panaji) in the nineteenth century? Or, do some interventions lead to more resilient outcomes? Focusing on 350 years of climate and its effects on the built environment in Goa, we explore existing records to produce new insights into past management of climate-related impacts on infrastructure and related ecosystem services.
Portuguese management of the local environment deployed multiple strategies to mitigate adverse climate conditions. These strategies included adapting the existing Konkan coastal peoples’ structures for littoral environmental management — most notably the khazan system (an intricate network of dikes, sluice gates, and canals that facilitated multiple productive purposes, including aquaculture, agriculture, salt-making, and coastal resilience) — as well as expanding systems already known to the Portuguese including well and cistern construction. Additionally, we argue the Portuguese may have unwittingly benefited from longer term climatic variations that allowed them to build and consolidate their hold on Goa before a confluence of environmental and political events resulted in abandonment of their capital city.
How to cite: Tangri, N., Ummenhofer, C., Walker, T. D., and Wilson, B.: Vulnerability and resilience of coastal infrastructure in western India (ca. 1500-1850 CE), EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-22042, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-22042, 2026.
The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion (MSNWD) project’s water source area (the Upper Hanjiang River; UH) and receiving area (northern North China; NNC) exhibit co-drought phenomena at multiple time scales. However, the common atmospheric and environmental factors driving the concurrent occurrence of the climate disasters have not been well understood. Using the reconstructed historical climate series, this study analyzed the teleconnection between the warm-season Arctic Oscillation (AO) and drought and flood (DF) in the UH and NNC at multi-temporal scales from 1650 to 1975. The results show that, with the transition of the AO on the inter-decadal and multi-decadal scales, the teleconnection between the AO and DF in the UH and NNC shifted accordingly. Overall, however, the DF in both areas changed in the same direction as the AO for most of the study period, i.e., when the AO index increased/decreased, the UH and NNC were more prone to drought/flood, and the frequency of extreme and severe drought/flood events tended to increase/decrease. The phase change in the correlation between the AO and DF in the UH and NNC has an influence on the transition between positive and negative correlations of DF in these two areas. Both the AO and the DF in the UH and NNC have inter-annual cycles of around 3–6 years, inter-decadal cycles of around 12 years, and multi-decadal cycles of around 20–30 years. Primarily on the multi-decadal scale, the AO is likely a significant predictor of DF in the UH and NNC. Furthermore, when the AO index abruptly increases/decreases, the UH and NNC are more prone to drought/flood than before.
How to cite: Zhang, X., Ren, G., and Yang, Y.: Concurrent occurrence of droughts and floods between the upper Hanjiang River and northern North China at multi-temporal scales: an association with Arctic Oscillation, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-355, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-355, 2026.
Papua New Guinea is situated at the heart of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool—the planet's largest reservoir of warm surface waters and a primary driver of global atmospheric circulation—making its palaeoecological records uniquely valuable for understanding how tropical convection, monsoon dynamics, and teleconnections such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation have shaped climate variability across hemispheres throughout the Quaternary. Fire has played a fundamental role in shaping the forests and grasslands of Papua New Guinea over millennia, serving as both a natural ecological process and a powerful tool of human landscape management that has influenced vegetation composition, maintained forest-grassland boundaries, and created diverse habitat mosaics. These cultural pyroscapes encompass extensive agricultural, horticultural and forest/grassland systems that are integral to the livelihoods of Indigenous communities, holding biocultural and spiritual significance while embodying traditional knowledge of sustainable management practices. Montane peatlands are also important agricultural centres since at least the last 7000 years, though the introduction of new dryland crops in the last 300 years has resulted in a shift of emphasis away from peat-based agriculture towards the drylands systems.
Here I review the current state of scientific research on the role of fire in creating, transforming and managing the biodiverse ecosystems of montane Papua New Guinea using new case studies from the southern and northern foothills of the central highlands, where the impact of climate change on plants and people are being felt at an increasing rate. Despite several decades of research, detailed knowledge of the hyper-diverse lower montane environments is poor and highlights the need for greater understanding of these systems for future management in a world of rapidly changing climate.
How to cite: Haberle, S.: Cultural Pyroscapes at the Centre of the Global Heat Engine – Fire Histories in the Montane Tropics of Papua New Guinea., EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-8425, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8425, 2026.
A major concern about the 2019-2020 Australian ‘Black Summer’ bushfires, along with other recent wildfire events worldwide, is whether they signal a shift toward a more extreme fire regime characterized by greater frequency, intensity, or burned area. Although fire has shaped Australia’s terrestrial ecosystems over evolutionary timescales, climate variability, and increasingly severe fire weather, perhaps exasperated by human-induced climate change or decisions regarding natural resource management, may be contributing to more extreme wildfires. Charcoal preserved in undisturbed, well-dated sediments holds significant potential for reconstructing long-term fire history. This study employed high-resolution ¹⁴C dating, charcoal accumulation (CHAR), and of a calibration experiment between Raman spectroscopy and Eucalypt species burnt in a calorimeter under controlled energy conditions to simulate a gradient from low-intensity to high-intensity wildfires. Our focus was on examining changes in fire intensity, severity and area burned in the upper Blue Mountains of NSW, in eastern Australia, over the Twentieth Century. We evaluated several previously proposed Raman-derived indicators of thermal maturity, including Raman band separation (RBS or G-D), the ratio of peak maximum intensities in the D- and G-bands (ID/IG), the ratio of the area under these bands (AD/AG), and the ratio of the full width at half maximum for the D- and G-bands (WD/WG). AD/AG produced the best relationship with increasing applied energy, but all these Raman-derived parameters were found to be less capable at higher fire intensities. To address this issue, a chemometric (backward interval partial least squares (PLS) regression) modelling approach was used which provided a more robust model linking Raman spectra and fire intensity. The application of this model across multiple upper Blue Mountains sites does not support the hypothesis that fire is becoming more severe. In contrast, CHAR results suggest that area burned across the region is increasing. We present a consideration of the drivers of these changes across the Twentieth Century, and further work seeks to place these trends in the context of the characteristics of fire regimes over the many thousands of years (represented by the sediments in the mires of the Blue Mountains).
How to cite: Maisie, M. A.: Fire Regime Shifts in the Blue Mountains, NSW, During the Twentieth Century: Insights from Charcoal Records in Temperate Highland Peat Swamps, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16356, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16356, 2026.
The spatial dimension of past fire regimes in European temperate forests remains insufficiently studied, despite its significance for understanding human influence on fire activity, the variability of historical fires, associated ecosystem dynamics, and implications for fire management and nature conservation, particularly in the context of ongoing climate change. We dendrochronologically reconstructed and analysed the minimum spatial extent of fires over the past four centuries in a 9.2 km² (920 ha) coniferous section of the Białowieża Forest, the best-preserved forest area in temperate Europe. Using tree ring data from cross-sections of 275 dead sample trees (Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris), we spatially reconstructed 82 fires between 1666 and 1946. Most fires (92%) spread beyond our study area. Fire size varied greatly, from events recorded at only one site (covering 1–200 ha) to those detected in more than half of the study area, thus exceeding 500 ha. The reconstructed ignition density of 3.2 fires per 100 km² (10,000 ha) per year was 10–100 times higher than the current lightning ignition density, indicating substantial human impact. Furthermore, analysis of temporal changes in the fire cycle revealed three periods of differing fire activity: 1670–1750, 1755–1840, and 1845–1955, which correspond to land use changes in the Białowieża Forest. Our results (Zin et al. 2022, Front Ecol Evol) highlight the importance of fire for the long-term ecosystem dynamics of the Białowieża Forest and the role of natural and anthropogenic disturbances in shaping temperate forests of Europe.
How to cite: Zin, E., Kuberski, Ł., Drobyshev, I., and Niklasson, M.: Human impact on fire regimes in temperate Europe: tree ring reconstruction of fire sizes in Białowieża Forest, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-17686, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-17686, 2026.
Understanding the occurrence and strength of anthropogenic fire in shaping vegetation dynamics through deep time is critical for reconstructing cultural pyroscapes, yet feasible methods to achieve this are extremely limited. Palaeoenvironmental proxies reveal changes in fire regimes and broad-scale vegetation responses but typically cannot uncover the dynamics of change and specific precipitating factors. Process-based models can potentially address this limitation by isolating the role of climate and determining which dimensions of human fire use—spatial patterns, seasonal timing, frequency—most strongly drove observed vegetation transitions. Such insights into historical fire stewardship would provide essential context for developing sustainable wildfire management and landscape resilience strategies today. Therefore, this work aims to develop a model capturing the interplay between climate-driven fire and human fire manipulation that quantifies the relative effects of anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic fire on vegetation.
The complexity of representing both fire types and their effects on diverse vegetation at resolutions aligned with human activity across deep time makes this exceptionally difficult. Existing models are typically unsuitable for this intersection of spatial and temporal scales and lack necessary representations of anthropogenic fire use. To make this tractable, we restrict attention to forest-grassland systems—enigmatic ecosystems likely shaped by long histories of human occupation that support reduction to an effective two-state system. We dramatically simplify representation by focusing on a theoretical ecotonal boundary between vegetation types, where stability determines whether mosaics persist or collapse. Within these bounds, we adapted and extended an existing spatially-explicit model of fire-vegetation dynamics designed for millennial timescales (Bowman and Perry, 2017).
Our model operates at individual-tree resolution with annual timesteps over multiple millennia. It incorporates vegetation state transitions, sub-annual climate cycles, and realistic fire spread dynamics as a function of flammability supported by empirical data. We integrate fundamental representations of anthropogenic fire use spanning spatial and temporal dimensions: where fires are preferentially ignited, when fires burn, and how frequently ignitions occur. Through systematic sensitivity analysis across these dimensions and climate contexts, preliminary results reveal that anthropogenic fire's contribution to boundary dynamics is highly context-dependent, particularly regarding moisture regimes. These results provide process-based understanding of mechanisms through which human fire use drives vegetation state transitions under different climatic conditions, revealing how humans—particularly Indigenous people—could have shaped and sustained landscape mosaics through strategic fire management across deep time. By successfully isolating these mechanisms, we achieve our aim of quantifying relative effects of anthropogenic versus climate-driven fire. This modeling framework offers a crucial tool for reconstructing cultural pyroscapes and understanding the deep-time relationship between humans and fire-shaped landscapes.
How to cite: Keeble, T., Perry, G., Saltre, F., Fletcher, M.-S., and Sheridan, G.: Quantifying anthropogenic fire influence in forest-grassland mosaics: A sensitivity modelling approach, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21433, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21433, 2026.
Risk management has reduced vulnerability to floods in many regions, yet their impacts continue to rise. Understanding the drivers of these changing impacts is urgent for effective action, but empirical evidence remains limited, particularly from long-term historical perspectives. Drawing on extensive Chinese historical documents, this study develops a composite index to quantify the overall societal impacts of floods, as manifested across six interrelated subsystems: environment, production, infrastructure, population, economy, and social order. An annual series of the flood impact index for Sichuan, southwestern China, is reconstructed for the period 1644–1911 (the Qing dynasty). Flood impacts exhibit a fluctuating yet overall increasing trend, with three turning points (1727, 1779, and 1856) defining four phases. These phases are characterized respectively by low flood frequency with limited impacts, increasing mortality, recurrent famine, and widespread disruptions to socioeconomic order. Notably, from the nineteenth century, cascading effects became increasingly pronounced, complicating impact chains and amplifying flood impacts across multiple interconnected subsystems. Drawing on the IPCC risk framework and integrating natural and socio-economic indicators, this study identifies the dominant drivers of the stepwise escalation of flood impacts. The increase in impacts from Phase 1 to Phase 2 was driven by rising exposure associated with rapid population growth and cropland expansion. The shift from Phase 2 to Phase 3 was dominated by increasing vulnerability linked to declining per capita cropland availability and frequent warfare. The transition to Phase 4 resulted from the combined effects of rising hazard, exposure, and vulnerability.
Historical experience suggests the need for a holistic, systems-based approach to flood risk management. The Sichuan case illustrates how reductions in vulnerability can be outweighed by rising exposure, a dynamic that remains evident in contemporary climate adaptation. Rather than prioritizing vulnerability alone, hazard, exposure, and vulnerability need to be considered jointly. Moreover, early identification and intervention targeting impact events with cascading potential are critical for limiting damage in increasingly interconnected systems.
How to cite: Chen, S. and Yang, L. E.: Long-term dynamics of flood impacts in Sichuan, China (1644–1911) underscore a holistic approach to flood risk management, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10896, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10896, 2026.
In past decades, urbanisation has risen around the world 1, increasing risk and exposure to shocks 2. Resilience theory offers valuable perspectives for understanding complex socio-ecological systems and their sustainable management 3,4,5, and for improving adaptation to climate change 6. Urban resilience refers to the ability of social, ecological and technical components to withstand, adapt to, and recover from disturbances across spatial and temporal scales 7. Studies have investigated sets of indicators that measure system dimensions separately to assess resilience against hazards (see 8,9). This method allows for the assessment of multiple system components at a given point in time. However, these components interact across spatial and temporal scales, creating temporal trade-offs and path-dependencies. Investigating these dynamics can significantly enhance the understanding of how urban resilience evolves and how its drivers operate over time 4,10,11,12. To advance urban resilience assessment, research should integrate multiple system components and examine their dynamics across different locations, enabling a more contextual understanding of resilience trajectories. In this study, I propose a methodological framework that uses openly published historical information by municipalities to track changes in urban systems over the past 30 years in European cities. The results can inform researchers, urban planners, and policymakers about how changes in the built environment have influenced social and environmental conditions over time, and how these changes are linked to increasing vulnerabilities and risks across urban systems.
References
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[3] Folke, C. et al. "Resilience thinking: integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability." Ecol Soc. 2010;15(4).
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[7] Meerow, S., Newell, J.P. and Stults, M. "Defining urban resilience: A review." Landsc Urban Plan. 2016;147:38–49.
[8] Osei-Kyei, R. et al. "Critical analysis of the emerging flood disaster resilience assessment indicators." Int J Disaster Resil Built Environ. 2025;16(3):417–36.
[9] Zhu, S. et al. "Enhancing urban flood resilience: A holistic framework incorporating historic worst flood to Yangtze River Delta, China." Int J Disaster Risk Reduct. 2021;61:102355.
[10] Meerow, S, and Newell, J.P. "Urban resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why?" Urban Geogr. 2019;40(3):309–29.
[11] Sharifi, A. "Resilience of urban social-ecological-technological systems (SETS): A review." Sustain Cities Soc. 2023;99:104910.
[12] Casali, Y., Aydin, N.Y., and Comes, T. "A data-driven approach to analyse the co-evolution of urban systems through a resilience lens: A Helsinki case study." Environ Plan B Urban Anal City Sci. 2024;51(9):2074–91.
How to cite: Casali, Y.: A framework to analyze the evolution of urban systems for resilience assessment, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1869, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1869, 2026.
The Tea-Horse Road area (茶马古道地区) spans the Hengduan Mountains and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, an area characterized by complex geography and frequent human activity. Over the past two millennia, the region has repeatedly faced floods of varying scales but has demonstrated significant flood resilience. As climate change intensifies, learning from past flood management strategies is crucial to enhancing current resilience. However, due to fragmented literature, discontinuous records, and limited regional attention, no long-term dataset has been available for flood resilience analysis. To fill this gap, this study developed a framework for quantifying long-term flood resilience and constructed the “Tea-Horse Road Flood Resilience Dataset (THR-FRD)”, compiling flood records from AD 0 to 2025. The dataset has a temporal resolution of 50 years, with spatial resolution based on county-level administrative divisions from historical periods. Data sources include local chronicles, archival documents, ethnographic surveys, archaeological evidence, and observational data. The dataset is structured into three core sub-databases: Exposure, Vulnerability, and Risk, to quantitatively assess flood resilience. The Exposure sub-dataset records the frequency, intensity, and affected areas of floods; the Vulnerability sub-dataset analyzes social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities; and the Risk sub-dataset evaluates the actual damage caused by floods, including casualties, property loss, and infrastructure damage. Flood resilience is assessed through a comprehensive evaluation of exposure, vulnerability, and risk, and can be calculated using a weighted model and normalization method. To maximize the utility of this dataset, the THR-FRD will be open-source and scalable, available in both Chinese and English, and retain original records. It will serve scholars from fields such as history and geography, providing decision support and facilitating interdisciplinary research.
How to cite: Ai, M.: Construction and Application of the Tea-Horse Road Area Flood Resilience Dataset (THR-FRD), EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-14125, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-14125, 2026.
Approximately 400 million years ago, the conditions that made fire possible appeared on Earth. With suitable climate and burnable biomass, fire evolved into a phenomenon capable of shaping terrestrial ecosystem across the globe. With the arrival of humans, fire also became a tool for their dispersal, landscape modification and agriculture. Today, global climate change, intensified anthropogenic activities, and associated vegetation shifts, are increasing wildfire risk and severity across many biomes, making study of past fire–climate–vegetation–human interactions crucial. Among the key by-products of fire, charcoal is extensively used as a proxy in paleofire studies. It provides critical insights into changes in fire regimes (frequency, vegetation burned, temperature, and severity). Despite this global importance, charcoal-based research from southern India remains limited. In this study, we experimentally produced charcoal from dominant woody and herbaceous species of a tropical dry deciduous forest in the Western Ghats, southern India. It was carried out in controlled temperatures, and its morphometry and morphology were quantified across species and plant parts. Morphometric results show that charcoal derived from trees, shrubs, and grasses can be statistically distinguished, providing a robust framework for interpreting vegetation sources. Complementary FTIR analyses reveal systematic spectral changes with charring temperature, particularly in the OH, aromatic, and cellulose functional group regions, demonstrating the method’s value for independently estimating burn temperature. This reference dataset provides the missing baseline needed to identify vegetation sources, burn temperatures, and interpret fire signals preserved in sediments from this region. We then applied this reference framework to interpret sedimentary charcoal and supplemented it with biomarkers preserved in a ~1,200-year profile from the same landscape. Macrocharcoal concentrations are generally low but increase significantly in the surface and near-surface layers. The charcoal recovered aligns closely with the shrub/grass-derived signatures, indicating a predominantly shrubby/grassy fuel source during these periods. n-alkane analysis shows a predominance of short even-chain n-alkanes (C16 and C18), which is uncommon in sedimentary samples. The odd long-chain n-alkanes (C21–C33) indices such as Carbon Preference Index (CPI), Paq, and Pwax suggest a transition from mixed aquatic–terrestrial inputs to predominantly terrestrial sources. Average Chain Length (ACL) and tree-to-grass n-alkane ratios point to increasing grass input towards the present. However, the sharp increase in grass input along with fire activity in the upper layers are more likely driven by human ecosystem modification than climate – a potential cultural pyroscape. We present here the first FTIR and morphometric charcoal reference datasets ever to be developed in India and the first multiproxy investigation to understand past fire dynamics in a protected area.
How to cite: Kumar, N., Ramya Bala, P., Behera, D., Anoop, A., and Sukuar4, R.: Reconstructing long-term fire, vegetation, climate, and human dynamics in a tropical dry forest: A 1200-year record from Mudumalai National Park, southern India, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-374, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-374, 2026.
The Australian tropical savanna is among Earth’s most fire-prone regions. For millennia, Aboriginal Australians used prescribed burning to improve habitats for food plants and herbivores and to mitigate high intensity fires ignited by lightning in the late dry season. However, these practices were rapidly and profoundly interrupted beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the arrival of European pastoralists. Some studies have suggested that as a result of this reduction in early dry season, low intensity burning, late dry season, high temperature fire activity increased, with deleterious effects on ecosystems. However, as Aboriginal burning was curtailed, the introduction of cattle (as well as sheep and donkeys) reduced the grassy fuel layer. Developing a clear picture of baseline fire activity prior to the pastoralist era is important because bushfire intensity modulates greenhouse gas emissions from tropical savannas and modulates savanna and rainforest ecosystem dynamics. Reconstructing bushfire frequency and intensity is complicated by limited historical records of burning prior to the late 20th century, and few naturally-occurring, high-resolution, fire-sensitive archives.
In order to place 20th century bushfire into a long-term context, we reconstructed fire activity at sub-decadal resolution for the majority of the last millennium using polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in three precisely-dated and fast-growing stalagmites from cave KNI-51, located in the tropical savanna of northeastern Western Australia. The molecular weights of PAH are tied to combustion temperature (i.e., higher molecular weights (HMW) form at higher temperature fires), and thus our record preserves evidence of both the timing and temperature of bushfire. In order to integrate the multiple stalagmites used to construct this composite record, we normalized each PAH class (low and high molecular weight) to the total PAH abundance in each sample.
The KNI-51 stalagmite record reveals that high temperature fire was a regular component of the Australian tropical savanna throughout the last millennium, suggesting late dry season fires were commonplace. However, soon after the arrival of European pastoralists in the 1880s, the frequency of high temperature fires decreased markedly and remained low until the record end of the KNI-51 record in 2009 CE. This shift in bushfire regime, which is apparent based on decadal averages of normalized HMW PAH and through breakpoint analysis, occurred despite severe reductions of early dry season burning by Aboriginal Australians. It also occurred during a monsoon rainfall regime, determined using oxygen isotope ratios from the same stalagmites, that was close to the last millennium average. Thus, after discounting prescribed burning and hydroclimate, we ascribe this decrease in high temperature bushfire to reductions by cattle of grassy fuel loads. The anomalous nature of the 20th century Australian tropical savanna pyroscape in the area of KNI-51 highlights the complexities associated with re-establishing the pre-pastoralist era bushfire regime in this region.
How to cite: Denniston, R., Ondei, S., Argiriadis, E., and Bowman, D.: Declining High Temperature Bushfire in Australian Tropical Savanna Following Arrival of European Pastoralists, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-2157, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-2157, 2026.
In oceanic temperate forests, as in more fire-prone ecosystems, fire contributes to shape the environment, define relationships between nature and society, orient forest uses, and influence biogeochemical cycles in ways that still need to be better understood. Fire weather is expected to increase also in these ecosystems over the coming decades, raising major concerns, and highlighting the need to better understand their past dynamics and biogeochemical implications. The Fontainebleau forest, located in France’s Ile-de-France region, has been documented since the 11th century, when it first became a royal forest, and is now a famous and highly frequented forest. At the crossroads of multiple uses, its management has evolved in response to numerous and sometimes antagonistic activities, such as hunting, timber harvesting, sand and sandstone quarrying, and, in recent centuries, the development of tourism, outdoor activities, and a significant artistic movement, the Barbizon school. The ecological and biogeochemical role of fire in such a socio-ecosystem is to be clarified. Our hypothesis is that the large amount of documentation available on this forest can help better understand past fire dynamics and their biogeochemical implications. What does available documentation reveal? A selection work in the existing iconographic archives led to the creation of a corpus representing fire in the Fontainebleau forest comprising 10 postcards, 9 engravings, 1 painting and 15 photographs dating from 1860 to 1911, as well as contemporary images of the ecological succession after a fire. Combining these images with the data from the 3FD database (1), we extract different types of information. In particular, we give visual evidence of type of fire (understory or peat), most exposed vegetation, and evolution of the management practices of fire (organisation of the reaction to fire). We also show how the geographical information and the images themselves can help to set up an experimental design and conduct field work, which will then enable us to carry out and interpret biogeochemical analyses. We also discuss the originality of this material.
Reference :
(1) Chevalier, M., Abiven, S., & Lebrun Thauront, J. (2024). Fontainebleau Forest Fires Database (3FD), version 1.0 [Data set]. In Fire Ecology. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13305154
How to cite: Rabotin, T., Abiven, S., Cointe, B., Tenu, C., Lebrun-Thauront, J., and Mertens, K.: Contributions of a century-old iconographic corpus to improve the understanding of past fire dynamics in the Fontainebleau forest, France, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-17907, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-17907, 2026.
Climate change has intensified extreme rainfall events, while rapid urban expansion has reduced rainwater infiltration. Together, these processes have disrupted urban hydrological systems and increased the frequency and severity of urban flooding, posing growing threats to lives and property. Conventional flood mitigation strategies largely depend on extensive grey infrastructure, such as pipes and tunnels, designed to rapidly evacuate stormwater. However, many of these systems were developed in the last century and are increasingly economically and ecologically unsustainable under intensifying rainfall extremes. In response, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have gained prominence as sustainable approaches that work with natural processes to enhance flood resilience. Although NbS are often framed as a modern response to climate change, similar principles have long existed in traditional ecological and planning practices. However, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is frequently regarded as fragmented or highly context-specific, which limits its systematic integration into contemporary flood resilience frameworks. As a result, it remains unclear whether such historically grounded practices can be translated into generalisable, scientifically testable principles applicable to modern NbS design and flood risk assessment.
Here, we present a systematic interpretation of flood management strategies in ancient Chinese civilisation through the lens of Feng Shui. Feng Shui is an indigenous planning philosophy centred on the concept of harmony between humans and nature and has been widely applied in traditional village site selection and layout. This study focuses specifically on the local water management principles embedded within Feng Shui. We synthesise ancient texts and classical literature to reconstruct traditional water-planning concepts and relate them to contemporary hydrological and geomorphological theory. Using spatial statistical and mathematical fitting analyses across more than 300 historical villages, we demonstrate the consistency and non-site-specificity of these principles. Furthermore, hydrodynamic simulations of a representative village show that Feng Shui–inspired water systems can effectively reduce flood depths and peak flows under present-day extreme rainfall scenarios, through mechanisms such as distributed storage, controlled diversion, and flow-path reorganisation.
Together, these results indicate that traditional village planning embodied core principles analogous to those underpinning modern NbS. Our findings provide quantitative evidence for the scientific basis, adaptability, and flood mitigation effectiveness of traditional ecological knowledge. More broadly, this study demonstrates a methodological pathway for translating TEK into scientifically grounded frameworks by integrating historical analysis, spatial statistics, and numerical modelling, highlighting its potential relevance for contemporary flood resilience assessment and NbS design.
How to cite: Li, X., Liang, Q., and Chen, H.: Decoding Chinese Ancient Culture-related Nature-based Solutions for Flood-Resilience Using Modern Informatics, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-6015, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-6015, 2026.
By the 18th century, China had established a relatively systematic and stable framework for relief institutions and bureaucratic operations. This study introduces the agent-based analytical framework FRAMα to reproduce the local governance network embedded in this bureaucratic structure. FRAMα is a reduced version of the empirically informed flood resilience agent-based modelling framework FRAMe, in which only the most essential mechanisms are retained.
Using a county affected by the 1870 Yangtze River flood as a case, the study describes local flood response conditions during the event. Scenario analysis shows that, although the bureaucratic system was relatively well developed, local governance outcomes varied substantially under different network configurations. A centralized governance structure relied heavily on the stability of key nodes, particularly on whether the local chief official (county magistrate) continued to fulfill their responsibilities. When this node remained functional, local governance exhibited a high level of operational resilience. Once the node ceased to function, system resilience declined rapidly and flood losses increased accordingly.
By transforming the recurrent historical issue of “officials’ dereliction of duty” into an analytical object of governance network structure, this study extends existing research on Qing dynasty relief and bureaucratic governance. It offers a new perspective for understanding the resilience of institutional operation in historical disaster governance and highlights the importance of shared responsibility and substitution mechanisms for contemporary flood resilience building.
How to cite: Feng, W., Chen, S., and Yang, E. L.: Modelling Local Governance Structure and Flood Resilience in the 1870 Yangtze River Flood, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-5457, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-5457, 2026.
Traditional knowledge has long shaped how agrarian societies perceive climatic variability and organize responses to environmental risk, yet its limits under unfamiliar and extreme climate shocks remain insufficiently examined. The 1928–1930 North China famine—one of the most severe climate–society crises in twentieth-century China—offers a crucial lens through which to probe these boundaries. Drawing on local archives, relief reports, and high-resolution climate reconstructions, this study reconstructs the knowledge structures and institutional context surrounding the 1929 Shaanxi famine. It shows that both public discourse and official governance consistently framed the crisis as a “drought.” In reality, however, agricultural collapse stemmed from the compound shock of prolonged aridity and anomalously severe cold. Local relief networks—grounded in Confucian ethics and experiential agricultural knowledge—displayed cognitive lag and coordination breakdown when confronted with cold-related crop failures, revealing a structural mismatch between inherited knowledge, institutional routines, and a rapidly shifting environmental reality. The analysis demonstrates that the making of historical disasters was shaped not only by climatic extremes but also by the fragile interactions among knowledge systems, social institutions, and environmental change. This case provides critical insight into how contemporary societies may misread climate risks and miscalculate policy responses under accelerating climate uncertainty.
How to cite: Zhang, Y. and Yang, Y.: From Adaptation to Breakdown: Traditional Knowledge and the 1929 Famine in Shaanxi, China, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-680, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-680, 2026.
While forensic methodologies for disaster analysis have been proposed and applied for more than a decade, a structured meta-analysis of multi-hazard events—revealing patterns and existing gaps across the disaster risk management cycle—remains significantly underexplored. This study presents a comparative analysis of five major multi-hazards events using the PARATUS approach, which integrates disaster analysis (Forensic analysis) with risk analysis (Impact Chains), specifically we compared: the 2017 Hurricane Irma (Sint Maarten), the 2018 Vaia Windstorm (Italian Alps), Gloria Storm 2020 (Catalonia), the 2021 La Soufrière volcanic eruption (Saint Vincent), and the 2023 Kahramanmaras earthquakes (Türkiye).
Beyond variations in compound and cascaded hazard combinations, these events encompass a range of geophysical and environmental conditions across areas with distinct socio-economic patterns. The PARATUS framework was selected for its structured, temporal alignment with disaster phases: pre-disaster conditions, hazard and impact analysis, recovery, and resilience building and the use of innovative conceptualisation tools such as impact chains.
By categorising multi-hazard events according to Tilloy et al. (2019), the meta-analysis provides evidence that these events amplify impacts and hinder response. Evidence for this amplification is found across the following categories: independent hazards (e.g., concurrent volcanic, pandemic, and disease events), triggering hazards (e.g., an earthquake cascading into landslides and liquefaction), and compound hazards (e.g., consecutive severe storms).
The meta-analysis underscore the relevance of investigating the social dimension of risk to formulate effective long-term risk-reduction and mitigation strategies. This is evident across the sections of Paratus' forensic framework: first, the pre-disaster conditions are shaped by institutional, social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities, often driven by unplanned development, poverty, and weak governance. Subsequently, during events, response and early warning systems are frequently hindered by poor coordination and inadequate communication with marginalised groups. Furthermore, post-disaster recovery, while focused on restoring infrastructure and finance, often adopts top-down approaches that neglect community engagement and long-term equity.
Despite significant progress in hazard and risk understanding and the identification of necessary risk management measures, this advanced knowledge has not yet been fully translated into consistent application, updated regulations, or comprehensive resilience planning. Consequently, critical resilience gaps persist, including unaddressed infrastructure vulnerabilities, insufficient community preparedness, fragmented emergency coordination, and a lack of financial risk-transfer mechanisms.
Finally, the forensic analysis framework is well-suited to meta-analysis due to its comprehensive, methodical structure, which ensures consistent, multidimensional data synthesis across diverse disaster events.
How to cite: Olaya Calderon, L. J., Cocuccioni, S., Romagnoli, F., Ramadhani Prasetya, S., Kumbikano, M., Pantaleoni, N., Kundak, S., Göksu, Ç., Atun, F., and Pittore, M.: Decoding Multi-Hazard Disasters: A Forensic Meta-Analysis using the PARATUS Forensic Analysis Framework, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-8293, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8293, 2026.
Disruption of travel due to extreme weather and other forms of damage, such as network isolation, travel delays, and associated wider economic losses, can far exceed direct damages. The scale of these indirect impacts depends critically on how operators and travellers respond to disruptions, which combines centralised responses with operational actions and behavioural adaptation in shaping the system performance.
This study proposes an innovative framework for multimodal transport systems that integrates decentralised operator response and passenger disruption-aware routing to evaluate indirect disruption impacts. Historical flood events are used to define plausible stress scenarios that locally reduce network capacity and service quality. When disruption occur, operators respond independently by prioritising either disrupted service recovery (e.g., speed up early road clearance and recovery process) or reinforcement of non-disrupted modes and corridors (e.g., adding bus frequencies and train short turns). These decentralised actions modify travel conditions and perceived generalised costs, and passengers subsequently reselect modes and routes through a logit-based choice model, leading to the change of travel demand at origin-destination level.
The framework is applied to road and rail networks in Great Britain using observed demand and future demand scenarios in 2030 and 2050 derived from long-term housing plans. By comparing indirect disruption impacts under a road-only system with those under an integrated road-rail system, the analysis highlights the extent to which multimodal connectivity mitigates indirect damages and reduces network isolation. Additionally, by capturing the interaction between disruption, decentralised response, and passenger behavioural change, the framework produces risk-weighted post-disruption capacity gaps that identify where congestion and service shortfalls persist. The results explicitly identify corridors and modes where capacity investment is most effective under future demand growth and plausible disruption conditions, providing actionable insights for long-term capacity planning and transport resilience. Indirect impacts are not just a property of infrastructure damage, but of how systems adapt.
Keywords: indirect disruption impacts; decentralised response; multimodal transport; integrated capacity planning and resilience
How to cite: Li, Y., Pant, R., Russell, T., Thomas, F., Hall, J., and Parlantzas, N.: Assessing Travel Disruption and Decentralised Responses in Multimodal Transport Systems , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21536, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21536, 2026.
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The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD), located in the lower Mekong River, is interwoven with thousands of small tributaries, receiving an abundant water supply from various natural sources. The region has faced severe flooding challenges for thousands of years. Meanwhile, the people at the VMD have survived over a long history and developed remarkable resilience to flood impacts. Their intelligence and practices have formed what is known as the “Water-rice civilization”. This study aims to investigate and answer three key questions regarding flood in the VMD: (1) How has the flood situation changed in the past? (2) What has been the extent of flood impacts on local communities? and (3) how have people improved long-term resilience to floods? To conduct the research, qualitative analysis was carried out through a literature review of multiple historical sources such as “Gia Dinh Citadel History” and existing research using MAXQDA software. Findings reveal the inseparable bond between residents and the river environment in the VMD, highlighting the evolution of various flood coping strategies, including living on islets, river islands, stilt houses, and cultivating crops on wetlands pre-during-post “floating seasons” (Mùa nước nổi), despite political upheavals and invasions. Keywords: Flood resilience; long-term adaptation; living-with-flood; Water-rice Civilization; floating seasons; Mekong Delta |
How to cite: Ho, T. P., Feng, W., Cheng, S., Ai, M., and Yang, L. E.: Flood risk and social resilience evolution in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta in the documented history, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-18044, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-18044, 2026.
