Recurrence Analysis of the Historical Extreme Drought of the Guangxu Era in the Qing Dynasty in China Under the Current Defense Conditions

Quantifying historical extreme drought is crucial to better understand and contextualize historical extreme droughts and prepare for extreme drought events that may occur in the future. However, quantitative- and science-based efforts to reconstruct historical extreme droughts and conduct potential impact analyses have been variable and incomplete. Using the Qing Palace Archives, this study modeled a modern day recurrence of the Guangxu drought during the Qing Dynasty from 1875 to 1879. The historical annual precipitation in core drought areas was quantitatively reconstructed based on snow-rain records derived from the Qing Dynasty archives. The precipitation anomaly percentage was calculated as a meteorological drought indicator to grade the historical drought intensity within the provincial regions. Then the corresponding relationship between precipitation anomaly percentage and the historical drought catalog was established and the evolution of historical drought was analyzed. This allowed for the characterization of possible impacts of severe drought on water resources, water supply, food production, and economy under current defense conditions. The results showed that if the Guangxu severe drought, which lasted from 1874 to 1879 and peaked from 1875 to 1878, occurred today under the current natural geographical conditions, core drought areas like Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong would experience water shortages greater than 50% of their multi-year average water resources. In addition, if the Guangxu, four-consecutive-year drought re-occurred, it would have profound impacts on the total water consumption, agricultural yield, and economy of core drought areas. We found that water transfer projects and large-medium-sized reservoirs will play central roles in drought mitigation in the event of an historical extreme drought.