Flood frequency and seasonality in the Sazava river catchment based on historical cases

Abstract

The paper gives an overall report on historical floods in the Sázava River Basin, focused on the pre-instrumental period in particular. Documentary sources, flood marks as well as measured data were made use of. The longitudal profile of the Sázava River from 1933, containing the maximum amount of factual information, represented the main tool. Field investigation was carried out especially on water mills and weirs, power plants, ferries, footbridges, bridges and other buildings and settlement parts around the Sázava River, which were located within the reach of floods and to which the upper reaches were related. The paper presents the first more detailed chronology of flood events on the Sázava River within the time limits of the years 1515 and 1891. Quotations from chronicles and other documentary sources are expanded by brief description of a flood‘s process on the Vltava River (and/or in the Vltava and Elbe River Basins) so that the chronicle record is verified according to the overall context. Each individual flood also includes a classification according to time occurrence and, at the end, a discussion on seasonality of all documented events. The most important event, from July 1714, is dealt with in the most detailed way. It is especially this event - often reflected in historical literature - that not only belongs to the really extraordinary events of the basin under review, but generally to the most remarkable extremes recorded in the written history of the Czech Lands