Historical floods of the 19th century in the amazon

Instrumental long-term climate records are scarce worldwide, especially in tropical regions such as the Brazilian Amazon. The lack of systematic data prior to the 20th century limits understanding of long-term climate variability and extreme events. This study is situated within the field of Historical climatology. It aims to contribute to knowledge of climate extreme events that occurred during periods of limited climatological data through analysis, focusing on the flooding events of 1859/60 and 1892 in the Amazon River basin. The research aligns 19th-century historical documents, such as newspapers, periodicals, official correspondence, and travel logs, with climate information from dendrochronological studies to reconstruct the magnitude, duration, and impacts of these flood events. Methodologically, it is constructed through an interdisciplinary approach combining environmental history, historical climatology, and hydrology, using written records as climate proxies that provide crucial information on river levels, rainfall seasonality, and flood persistence. Analysis of tree-rings from the Amazonian trees known as “Cedro-Vermelho” (Cedrela Odorata) indicates that the floods of 1859/60 and 1892 were among, if not the, most severe flooding extremes of the 19th century on the Amazon River basin. Historical descriptions of damage to livestock, farming, agriculture, urban infrastructure, and the living conditions of the population, which mainly consisted of “ribeirinhos”, a traditional culture and way of life near the rivers, back this up. The results demonstrate that rescuing and systematizing historical climate information from a region with a traditional lack of instrumental records helps fill a gap in tropical data. Regions such as those analyzed in this study have often been overlooked in historical climate research. The potential of historical records combined with dendrochronological analysis has proven extremely promising. It allows not only cross-validation of information but also the recovery of climate data through a non-conventional method of analyzing climate before the 20th century, helping to build a more comprehensive understanding of past climate in the vast Amazonian territory.