Stable yet dynamic: a cross-era comparative case study of drought impacts and social responses in Germany and Jing-Jin-Ji Region (China)

Abstract

Droughts, as one of the costliest weather-related disasters, have been and will continue to be part of the common human experience. However, insufficient endeavors have been made to explore drought-society interactions in different natural and sociocultural contexts. In light of this, the present study focused on Germany and the Jing-Jin-Ji Region (China), which are dominated by marine climate and monsoon climate, respectively, and examined the similarities and differences among six extreme drought events that occurred at different episodes of the transformation from agrarian to modern societies over the last 2 centuries. Based on area-specific reconstructions of dry-wet indices and multilingual written documents, a comparable profile of each event was first created under a common impact-response structural framework that encompassed five drought categories and five response attributes. Then, cross-event comparisons were conducted, highlighting the stable and dynamic elements of drought effects/impacts and social response patterns. It was found that (1) abnormally dry and hot conditions, vegetation damage, unsatisfactory crop performance, insufficient river flow, food insecurity, and social instability were effects and impacts independent of climate systems and were well documented by different societies regardless of severity. (2) Despite distinct socio-environmental contexts and different disaster relief modes (e.g., top-down or bottom-up), maintaining or restoring the supply-demand balance of goods was an underlying logic of drought mitigation shared by different societies. Under this logic, actions often focused on the socioeconomic systems in drought-stricken areas, and the participation of governments was common due to the need for organization and coordination. (3) The diversification of documented drought impacts on socioeconomic systems was observed in both study areas as society developed, owing to increasingly complicated economic sectors and the wider range of social concerns. (4) In recent droughts, both study areas have averted survival-threatening food insecurity through early interventions in agricultural production, multiple remedies after harvest failure, and efficient resource distribution at the national or larger scale. However, current responses have not been enough to eliminate the threat of compound drought-heatwave events to individual survival with regard to water security (i.e., insufficient drinking water) and health (i.e., heat-related deaths). The results not only provided empirical evidence of the climate-environment-society nexus that goes beyond period-specific experiences but also demonstrated the feasibility of documentary-based cross-regional comparisons in spite of linguistic differences.