Abstract
Throughout history, food adequacy has been one of the most critical parameters for the survival of human societies. The prevailing atmospheric conditions have always been recognised as the primary and most uncontrolled factors that determine crop production, both quantitatively and qualitatively. However, this is only a part of the effects chain. In order to assess the magnitude of the potential cultural impacts of weather changes in a region, it is crucial to comprehend the underlying mechanism of successive consequences that relate the proximate causes, which in our case are the adverse Agro-Meteorological Conditions (AMC), to their effects on society. The present study focuses on the analysis of the impacts’ mechanism on human societies. Moreover, several characteristic agro-meteorological events that have led to significant changes in European civilisation are presented as case studies. The results highlight the linkage between weather and its impact on history evolution based on Agro-Meteorological Famine (AMF). The proposed concept and its analysis by the schematic presentation are in corroboration with the documented historical events of European history. Moreover, the presented connections between weather, agricultural production, and society revealed the significant contribution of the short-term adverse weather conditions on the mechanism of the human civilisation evolution.
Highlights
Civilisation is causally linked to food production
The prevailing adverse Agro-Meteorological Conditions (AMC) are potentially destructive environmental components since they engender multiple adverse developments and determine the stability and prosperity of civilisations. It seems that the abrupt changes in weather constitute a non-anthropogenic parameter in the shaping of human history by the Agro-Meteorological caused Famines (AMF)
It is possible that AMC are just as an essential environmental factor as climate change since, despite their short duration, their multiplicative effects are significant
Summary
Civilisation is causally linked to food production. It was when organised groups of people remained at a location for a prolonged period of time, developing their first settlements, when the agricultural activity began to appear in the historical proscenium [1]. Slavin [20] points out that “Climate and environment do play a pronounced role in human societies, and especially in the pre/non-Industrial world, but their impact often tends to be exaggerated” and considers that the human institutions and the culture of a region are of great importance He concludes that climate and nature are the first elements in a perplexing chain of factors that lead to famine. Engler [21] developed the famine vulnerability analysis model (FVAM) to achieve a more comprehensive approach by involving all the factors that generate famine He suggests the distinction between social vulnerability (SV) and the environmental vulnerability (EV) factors and considers as initiating drivers the climate, the political failure, the wars, and the microbial shocks. This research was further supplemented by representative descriptions involving the relations between AMC and characteristic aspects of civilisation
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