Listen to voices from the past

By Jean-Philippe Vidal

I promise, it will definitely be a post on droughts, not a ghost story. Well, actually… When you think about it, there will be many ghosts around! This post arises from a conference I attended a week ago (1-2 June 2017) in Strasbourg, entitled “Adaptation and resilience to droughts: historical perspectives in Europe and beyond”. And many ghosts were called in.

In the context of anthropogenic climate change, societies are desperately looking for ways to cope with droughts that are seemingly becoming increasingly severe or more and more frequent. So they try and figure out what may happen during the remaining of this 21st century, somewhat helped by climate projections. But what about looking at, and looking for, what actually happened during our rich history of battles against droughts? This was the aim of this highly multidisciplinary conference, gathering contributions from hydrologists, historians, climatologists, archeologists, geographers, and people for many more disciplines that I can list here… Have you ever imagined that a theologian may bring relevant information on adaptation of societies to droughts? And yet…

Picture by Solange Gautier used for the frontcover of the conference book of abstracts.

Beside the rather anecdotal contribution of theology, many voices have been heard during this conference. The voice from this Calabrian ecclesiastic running a propluvia procession. The voice from this late medieval English farmer fearing that this summer dry conditions may again favor the development of the plague. The voice from this 19th century missionary in what is now Botswana reporting on impacts of this unusually dry season on his parishioners. The voice from this French engineer gauging the length of the Ardèche river in a hot summer, to hopefully solve the issue of water resource sharing among millers. The voice from this 20th century American painter depicting his personal experience of the Dust Bowl disaster. The voice from this Roman official looking at the fire ravaging his domain in the lower Rhine valley and leaving charcoal that will be dated millennia later. The voice from this frog desperately looking for a puddle of water centuries later in the same region, before humans build dams and divert rivers to fill in their own ponds. The voice from this twelfth century commentator mentioning a drought among the much more important comets. The voice from this Portuguese colon coping with droughts in the 16th century in his large estate along the banks of the Zambezi. The voices from consecutive Barcelona city rulers adapting urban water governance in response to droughts over three centuries. The voices from this family suffering from famine in the Carolingian realm in the year 793. The voice from this Czech farmer looking in despair at the locust invasion in 1542, two years only after this so dreadful drought, and remembering his grand-father story from the year following the great drought of 1473.

Droughts have been affecting human societies for millennia. Impacts and adaptation have been reported in chronicles, personal diaries, newspapers, administrative reports, and even art. The conclusion from this conference may be condensed in this short recommendation, which I definitely make mine: “Listen to voices from the past.” They may inspire us.