The risk is in the detail: historical cartography and a hermeneutic analysis of historical floods in the city of Murcia

Abstract

The study of historical floods is a growing research trend that has generated numerous methodologies that aim to convert the qualitative historical documentation into quantitative information. This codification process aims to make comparable in time and space the manner in which past societies adapted to floods, and so extract the positive or negative points that can help reduce vulnerability and increase the resilience of current societies. However, the diversity of cultural and historical contexts, as well as the spatial-temporal heterogeneity of documentary sources, makes it difficult to extrapolate quantitative methods in historical climatology. This situation means that interpretative analyses of texts are still necessary as a complement to quantitative studies. In this paper, we make a hermeneutic analysis of the three most catastrophic floods that have occurred in the city of Murcia (south-eastern Spain) in the last 400 years. We complete this analysis with a historical cartographic reconstruction of a quantitative nature. Among the main conclusions, we highlight the fact that the society of Murcia had strategies to overcome catastrophes that included the whole of society and an integrated emergency management. However, the state of poverty of privation prior to a flood is a determining factor in explaining the resilience of a social system. A large increase in exposure of flood-prone areas over the past two centuries is noteworthy but unsurprising. However, it is surprising that the percentage of urban area exposed to flooding is now smaller than in the past. Therefore, if we consider hazard avoidance as a form of management, we can say that pre-industrial Murcian society was less efficient in using the mechanisms available to adapt to flooding.

Keywords

• hermeneutic analysis
• historical cartography
• huerta of murcia
• vulnerability
• catastrophic floods