Geografie 2020, 125, 117-137
Flash floods in Moravia and Silesia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
, Rudolf Brázdil1,3
1Masaryk University, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Brno, Czechia
2Palacký University, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Olomouc, Czechia
3Czech Academy of Sciences, Global Change Research Institute, Brno, Czechia
Received June 2019
Accepted December 2019
A range of documentary evidence and systematic meteorological/hydrological observations were employed to create a database of flash floods for Moravia and Silesia (the eastern part of Czechia) in the 19th and 20th centuries. The data extracted were used for an analysis of the spatiotemporal variability of flash floods, based on the frequency of days with flash floods and the number of municipalities affected. The dynamic climatology of flash floods was interpreted using the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute classification of synoptic types. Descriptions of flash-flood-related damage enabled their further division into six different types. Examples of three outstanding flash floods are described in more detail. All interpreted results are discussed with respect to spatiotemporal data uncertainty and their national and broader central European context. Flash floods constitute significant extreme natural events in Moravia and Silesia; knowledge of them, and more detailed investigation, are important to risk reduction.
Keywords
flash flood, documentary data, meteorological observations, spatiotemporal analysis, dynamic climatology, types of flash floods, victims, damage, Moravia and Silesia.
Funding
O. Halásová was supported by Masaryk University within the MUNI/A/1576/2018 “Complex research of the geographical environment of the planet Earth” project and R. Brázdil by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic within the SustES – Adaptation strategies for sustainable ecosystem services and food security under adverse environmental conditions project, no. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000797. Prof. Alena Křížová (Brno) is acknowledged for Fig. 1c. Tony Long (Svinošice) helped work up the English.
