Relationship between famine and climatic disasters in China during the Qing Dynasty

Abstract

Famine poses a significant threat to human food security and sustainable development. This study investigates the prevalence and magnitude of famine and its connection to climatic change/disasters at different spatiotemporal scales. The famine index was reconstructed using 13,828 famine-related literature records in China during the Qing Dynasty (AD 1644-1911). The study found that extreme drought/flood events instantaneously triggered famine at the seasonal to interannual scale, leading to intermittent occurrences of great famines. Drought-induced famine was the most prominent. Famine was positively correlated with drought in both short-term variations and long-term trends across different regions. The effect of floods on famines was double-edged and varied between the north and south of China. The severe famines that occurred between 1811 and 1878 were related to both climatic cooling and an increase in drought/flood events under a situation of growing population pressure on resources. The greatest famine of 1876-1878 was probably the result of long-term interactions among intensifying man-land contradictions since the early 19th century, periodic droughts in north China, and a weakening of regional buffering mechanisms due to flood-induced declines in south China.