Relationship between climatic change and the nomadic southward migrations in eastern Asia during historical times

Fang, Jin-qi; Guo, Liang

doi:10.1007/bf00142964

Cited by 86 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…4). These negative processes had been amplified by the minor cycle of individual behavior, notably the three instances of large-scale military actions to the northwest, southwest and Korea during the reign of Emperor Wanli, and its resulting heavy taxation on farmers (Fan and Cai, 1994). A recent study confirmed that climate change indeed impacted the key processes (military farm production, food and fiscal crises, peasant uprising, etc.)…”

Section: Climate Change and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This was particularly true for the period before the Yuan dynasty. Several large invasion events throughout history had brought destructive damage to the agrarian economy in the central plains, at least for the economy in northern China (Fu, 1981;Fang and Liu, 1992). From a macro-historic perspective, it may be one of the most important reasons contributing to stronger positive correlations between economic fluctuations and climatic indexes during the first millennium AD.…”

Section: Macro Mechanism For Climatic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The southern invasion of the Yuan, together with the less sophisticated social management system and frequent foreign military, already caused great historical retrogression (Fu, 1981). A large cooling shift from the end of the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age occurred around the 14th century AD (Ge et al, 2013), when nationwide agricultural depression accompanied the rise of drought/flood disasters across the country after the reign of Kublai Khan (AD 1260-1294) (Fan and Cai, 1994). This major climatic shift, among other things like fiscal crisis, brought the imperial economy from a K-phase during the Song period into a rapid releasing phase (Ω) during the late Yuan period.…”

Section: Climate Change and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China

et al. 2015

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Investigations of the relationships between climate and human history often place more emphasis on the science of climate change than on understanding human socio-economic processes, and therefore suffer from superficial results and an unbalanced perspective. This is partly due to the lack of high-resolution data concerning long-term socio-economic processes. Here, we base our study of climate and society on a series of 2130-yr-long economic proxy data from China with decadal resolution. The economy was associated significantly with temperature and precipitation at the two predominant bands of 100 and 320 yr. The phase transition of economic states was influenced positively by long-term temperature change combined with triggering effects of short-term changes in precipitation. However, climatic impact on economy should not be recognized as simple causality but some driving-response relation coupled with meditation by human agency at multiple scales. A model of 'adaptive cycles' implies, in relative to the developing phases, climate-economy relationship during the declining phases was more easily moderated by slower processes like rigidity and faster processes like unrest. From a more-macro perspective, climatic driving for the macro-economic cycles was moderated by larger and slower processes like social memory, spatial shifting of key economic areas, and social-technical advance.

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Section: Climate Change and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Macro Mechanism For Climatic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Climate Change and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China

et al. 2015

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“…As climate altered, the Chinese and the nomadic people were either at peace or at war. The location of the farming-grazing transitional zone (hereafter FGTZ) shifted northwards or southwards as a result of the power balance between the Chinese and the nomadic people (Fang and Liu 1992) ( Fig. 5).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-economic Impacts on Flooding: A 4000-Year History of the Yellow River, China

Chen

Syvitski

Gao

et al. 2012

AMBIO

219

163

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We analyze 4000-year flood history of the lower Yellow River and the history of agricultural development in the middle river by investigating historical writings and quantitative time series data of environmental changes in the river basin. Flood dynamics are characterized by positive feedback loops, critical thresholds of natural processes, and abrupt transitions caused by socio-economic factors. Technological and organizational innovations were dominant driving forces of the flood history. The popularization of iron plows and embankment of the lower river in the 4th century BC initiated a positive feedback loop on levee breaches. The strength of the feedback loop was enhanced by farming of coarse-sediment producing areas, steep hillslope cultivation, and a new river management paradigm, and finally pushed the flood frequency to its climax in the seventeenth century. The co-evolution of river dynamics and Chinese society is remarkable, especially farming and soil erosion in the middle river, and central authority and river management in the lower river.

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“…In contrast, those short-term extreme drought/flood events would abruptly cause adverse effects on a larger scale beyond the threshold that society can adapt. It has long been noted that large-scale peasant uprisings in Chinese history were usually accompanied by extreme drought events and induced famines due to short-term anomalous reductions in precipitation (Deng 1937). It is estimated that a shift from a relatively warm phase to a cold phase at the turn of the nineteenth century caused the social vulnerability to reach a critical level approximately 20 years earlier on the North China Plain during the late Qing Dynasty (Fang et al 2013).…”

Section: Potential Mechanism For Climatic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A preliminary analysis of economic fluctuations and climate changes in China from BC 220 to AD 1910

Wei

Fang

2014

Reg Environ Change

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Understanding the socioeconomic effects of past climate change is valuable for sustainable social development. However, quantitative analyses of the longterm relationships between climate change and human society have been limited by a lack of long-term highresolution data that indicate socioeconomic processes. Here, based on 1,091 records extracted from 25 books on Chinese history and economic history written by leading contemporary scholars, an economic proxy series for China with decadal resolution is presented that encompasses the period from BC 220 to AD 1910. A method for semantic differential and integrating descriptions with multi-time resolution is developed. The statistical results show that warm and wet periods were associated with above-average economic performance, while cold and dry climatic scenarios greatly increased the possibility of economic crisis. Temperature was more influential than precipitation in explaining the long-term economic fluctuations, whereas precipitation displayed more significant effects on the short-term macro-economic cycle. It is proposed that the climatic effects on agrarian economic development were highly dependent on the social vulnerability, which is determined by particular social, economic and political backgrounds. From a deep time perspective, our study may provide new insight into the current intense arguments regarding the economic effects of global warming.

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Relationship between climatic change and the nomadic southward migrations in eastern Asia during historical times

Cited by 86 publications

References 16 publications

Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China

Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China

Socio-economic Impacts on Flooding: A 4000-Year History of the Yellow River, China

A preliminary analysis of economic fluctuations and climate changes in China from BC 220 to AD 1910

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