300 years of hydrological records and societal responses to droughts and floods on the Pacific coast of Central America
The management of hydrological extremes and impacts on society is inadequately understood because of the combination of short-term hydrological records, an equally short-term assessment of societal responses and the complex multi-directional relationships between the two over longer timescales....
Main Authors: | , , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2018-02-01
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Series: | Climate of the Past |
Online Access: | https://www.clim-past.net/14/175/2018/cp-14-175-2018.pdf |
Summary: | The management of hydrological extremes and impacts on society is
inadequately understood because of the combination of short-term
hydrological records, an equally short-term assessment of societal
responses and the complex multi-directional relationships between the two
over longer timescales. Rainfall seasonality and inter-annual variability on
the Pacific coast of Central America is high due to the passage of the Inter
Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation
(ENSO). Here we reconstruct hydrological variability and demonstrate the
potential for assessing societal impacts by drawing on documentary sources from
the cities of Santiago de Guatemala (now Antigua Guatemala) and Guatemala de
la Asunción (now Guatemala City) over the period from 1640 to 1945. City
and municipal council meetings provide a rich source of information dating
back to the beginning of Spanish colonisation in the 16th century. We use almost
continuous sources from 1640 AD onwards, including > 190 volumes
of <i>Actas de Cabildo</i> and <i>Actas</i> <i>Municipales</i> (minutes of meetings of the city and municipal councils) held by
the Archivo Histórico de la Municipalidad de Antigua Guatemala (AHMAG) and the Archivo General de Centro América
(AGCA) in Guatemala City. For this 305-year period
(with the exception of a total of 11 years during which the books were either
missing or damaged), information relating to Catholic rogation ceremonies
and reports of flooding events and crop shortages were used to classify the
annual rainy season (May to October) on a five-point scale from very wet to
very dry. In total, 12 years of very wet conditions, 25 years of wetter than
usual conditions, 34 years of drier conditions and 21 years of very dry
conditions were recorded. An extended drier period from the 1640s to the
1740s was identified and two shorter periods (the 1820s and the
1840s) were dominated by dry conditions. Wetter conditions dominated the
1760s–1810s and possibly record more persistent La Niña conditions that
are typically associated with higher precipitation over the Pacific coast of
Central America. The 1640s–1740s dry period coincides with the Little Ice
Age and the associated southward displacement of the ITCZ. |
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ISSN: | 1814-9324 1814-9332 |