Volcanic eruptions, successive poor harvests and social resilience over southwest China during the 18–19th century

Abstract

Volcanic eruptions, climate changes and their influences on crop harvests and social development are of increasing concern in science communities. Using a dataset of crop harvest scores of southwest China from 1730 to 1910, which was derived from the memorials to the emperors in the Qing Dynasty of China, reconstructed climate proxies and the chronology of large volcanic eruptions occurring between 10°S and 15°N, we analysed possible relationships between crop harvests, climate changes and volcanic eruptions. In addition, some archives of policies and measures related to crops and social development extracted from the chronicles were used to analyse social resilience when faced with poor harvests. The results show that crop harvests in the study area generally increased with fluctuations when there were less low-latitude large volcanic eruptions from 1730 to 1810. However, from 1811 to 1910, volcanoes at low latitudes erupted more frequently, which contributed to concurrent low temperature and drought. Meanwhile, the crop harvests showed a step-down decrease during the following periods of 1810s, 1850s, 1870s and 1890s. Though, the local social system was certainly resilient in facing of such climate and agriculture disasters, i.e. the local society remained stable without significant famine, large-scale migration or social unrest until 1911. The strong resilience of local social systems owed largely to various relieving measures, such as, building barns, exempting or reducing local taxes, allocating farmland to immigrants, and central government dominated grain purchasing and distribution to alleviate disasters.

Flood disasters and social resilience during the decline of the Qing Dynasty: Case studies of 1823 and 1849

“…The popularity of corn planting in southern China has also increased the risk of floods, because corn does not require high standard of land levelling and can be grown in steep mountainous areas that were previously unusable for agricultural production. This was a measure taken to address the problem of insufficient arable land due to increased population (Hao et al, 2020). However, corn planting on the steep mountain slopes destroyed the forests, intensified water and soil erosion in the mountains.…”

“…For example, as recorded in Yu‐Xue‐Fen‐Cun documents, the severe drought of 1876–1878 was the worst drought disaster to have occurred in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River since 1736; moreover, floods occurred frequently in the 1790s, 1820s, 1880s, 1910s, 1950s and 1960s in this region (Hao et al, 2008; Zheng et al, 2018). Using official historical materials and local chronicles of the Qing Dynasty, Hao et al (2020) reconstructed the response of the Qing social system to the agricultural harvest failure caused by the low temperatures and drought after the eruption of the Mount Tambora volcano in 1815.…”

“…Drought is a gradual process, and the social system generally has sufficient time to respond. For example, when a drought hit southwest China in the 19th century, the government successfully responded to the subsequent famine by exempting taxes in disaster areas, transferring grain to the affected areas, reducing or exempting customs taxes on grain transported to the affected areas, and cracking down on grain hoarding (Hao et al, 2020). Nonetheless, unlike droughts, in historical China, where there were no weather forecasts, floods often occurred suddenly and inundated humans, animals, and property within days or even hours.…”

Reconstruction of ancient drought in Northwest China and societal responses: A case study of 1759

“…These reports are now preserved in the First Historical Archives of China, including the overall status of the province's summer harvest (mostly winter wheat, rice, and barley) and autumn harvest (primarily rice, spring wheat, and corn), as well as the harvest scores of the administrative units (department, prefecture, subprefecture) under its jurisdiction. The harvest score is a quantitative description of the degree of agricultural harvest, commonly assessed using the 10-fen method (Hao et al, 2020).…”

New perspectives on historical climatology

“…More complex quantitative methods have enabled more systematic analyses incorporating a greater variety of socio‐economic factors (Pei et al, 2018; Su et al, 2018). Studies have also examined short‐term climate–society interactions and individual historical events, such as volcanic eruptions in southwestern China (Hao et al, 2020), as well as weather and disasters during the collapse of Liao Dynasty (Li et al, 2019) and Northern Song Dynasty (Storozum et al, 2018). Nevertheless, studies demonstrating large‐scale linear correlations between variables such as temperature and conflicts remain the most highly cited, and reviews from qualitative researchers and scholars outside China have faulted much Chinese climate history for uncritical use of data and for climate determinism (Degroot, 2018c; Degroot et al, 2021; van Bavel et al, 2019).…”