Changing impacts and societal responses to drought in southwestern Germany since 1800

Drought directly and indirectly affects the entire socio-economic and environmental sectors in southwestern Germany. Such impacts are a result of the drought hazard and an underlying vulnerability of the systems. With respect to climate change and the dynamics of vulnerability over time, it becomes crucial to investigate the preceding components, in order to understand possible future magnitudes of the hazard and drivers of drought impacts. Therefore, drought indices were generated from the early nineteenth century in order to identify exceptional meteorological summer droughts. Documentary evidence and historical yield statistics were used to contextualise historical drought events by drought impacts and responses. Considering both, selected summer drought events were analysed and mutually compared based on the impact on society and ecology, as well as societal responses to these. The derived standardised indices highlight differences between severe droughts in duration and temporal peculiarity and put into perspective the current understanding of the intensity of recent drought hazards. The discourse analysis reveals that the propagation of drought and the kinds of impacts have remained rather similar through time, only shifting to modern livelihood assets. However, vulnerability, which strongly depends on the societal contexts, has changed over time and lowered severity of impacts, especially with regard to food and water supply, as well as human health.