The catastrophic flood in Transbaikalia (Central Asia) in 1897: case study

Alena Kadetova () and Yan Radziminovich

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2014, vol. 72, issue 2, 423-441

Abstract: The territory of Transbaikalia (Russia) is subject to occasional large-scale flooding. One of the most significant events in terms of scale and consequences is the historical flood that occurred in August 1897. In this article, we have tried to reconstruct the flood event. For this purpose, we have used all available historical sources (official statistical data, newspaper publications). The flood was observed almost simultaneously in two river basins (the Selenga and Shilka rivers). The main cause of the catastrophic flood was the abnormally intensive rainfall in the Hentey Mountains (Mongolia) and in Chikokonsky Ridge (southern Transbaikalia) in summer 1897. We have singled out four flood stages on the basis of the dates of flooding in different settlements. The flooding was accompanied by silting of considerable areas, and formation of new channels in local places. The flood in August 1897 in Transbaikalia, Russia, clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of both the environment and society to such catastrophic events. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Transbaikalia; Central Asia; Historical flood; Natural environment change; Historical data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-013-1019-x (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:72:y:2014:i:2:p:423-441

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-013-1019-x

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().