Climate of the Past
Climate of the Past
CP
Articles | Volume 16, issue 2
Articles | Volume 16, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-679-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-679-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 16, issue 2
Research article
 | 
06 Apr 2020
Research article |  | 06 Apr 2020

“Everything is scorched by the burning sun”: missionary perspectives and experiences of 19th- and early 20th-century droughts in semi-arid central Namibia

Stefan Grab and Tizian Zumthurm

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Cited articles

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Arnold, S., Attinger, S., Frank, K., Baxter, P., Possingham, H., and Hildebrandt, A.: Ecosystem management along ephemeral rivers: Trading off socio-economic water supply and vegetation conservation under flood regime uncertainty, River Res. Appl., 32, 219-233, https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.2853, 2016. 
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Brázdil, R., Kiss, A., Luterbacher, J., Nash, D. J., and Řezníčková, L.: Documentary data and the study of past droughts: a global state of the art, Clim. Past, 14, 1915–1960, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-1915-2018, 2018. 
Brázdil, R., Demarée, G. R., Kiss, A., Dobrovolný, P., Chromá, K., Trnka, M., Dolák, L., Řezníčková, L., Zahradníček, P., Limanowka, D., and Jourdain, S.: The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe as described by both documentary data and instrumental measurements, Clim. Past, 15, 1861–1884, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-1861-2019, 2019. 
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Here we describe the unique nature of droughts over semi-arid central Namibia (southern Africa) between 1850 and 1920. We establish temporal shifts in the influence and impact that historical droughts had on society and the environment during this period. The paper demonstrates and argues that human experience and the associated reporting of drought events depend strongly on social, environmental, spatial, and societal developmental situations and perspectives.
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Droughts over centuries: what can documentary evidence tell...