Abstract
The occurrence of bumper or poor grain harvests in ancient China plays an important role in explaining how past climate changes affected the economy. Because of the lack of long-term continuous and high-resolution quantitative data for reconstructing the series of grain harvests in ancient China, understanding of the impacts and mechanisms involved in climate change is limited. This study presents a method designed for reconstructing grain harvest series by quantifying grain output levels based on the descriptions in historical documents. The method involves setting the grain output level for each year based on very specific meanings of different words, calculating a yield index based on the structure of each level and assessing grain yields (bumper or poor harvests) every 10 years. First, 1636 records related to grain yields (including crop yields, food security, agricultural disasters, grain prices, grain storage and people’s livelihoods) for each year were retrieved from history books called the Twenty-Four Histories. Second, using this method, a 10-year resolution graded grain harvest series from the Western Han Dynasty to the Five Dynasties (206 BC–960 AD) is reconstructed. Finally, the relationship between the variations in temperature and precipitation and the fluctuation of grain yields is examined. The results show that from the Western Han Dynasty to the Five Dynasties, bumper, average and poor harvest decades accounted for 33.3%, 39.3% and 27.4% of the 1,166-year period, respectively. The grain yields during 206 BC–960 AD can be divided into three stages: a period of bumper harvests during 206–51 BC, poor harvests during 50 BC–590 AD and bumper harvests during 591–960 AD. Bumper harvest decades typically experienced a warm climate with normal or high levels of precipitation, while poor harvest decades had a cold and dry climate. A positive correlation was found between temperature and grain yield because a warm climate allows a full use of resources. The observed relationship between precipitation and grain yield indicated that both flooding and droughts cause poor harvests, which confirms that agricultural production in the monsoon climate of eastern China is greatly impacted by conditions of limited heat and extreme precipitation.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Academy of Meteorological Science State Meteorological Administration. 1981. Atlas With Yearly Charts of Dryness/wetness in China for the Last 500 Years. Beijing: Cartographic Publishing House
Chu K C. 1973. The preliminary research on climate change in China of past five thousand years. Sci China Ser A, 2: 15–38
Fan K W. 2010. Climatic change and dynastic cycles in Chinese history: A review essay. Clim Change, 101: 565–573
Fan Z M. 1991. The research on the regionalization of Chinese ancient agriculture. Agri Hist China, 1: 1–4, 90
Fang X Q. 1999. Decline of pre historical agriculture and formation of farming grazing transitional zone in north China: A view from climatic changes. J Nat Res, 14: 212–218
Ge Q S, Wang W Q. 1992. Population pressure, climate change and Taiping rebellion. Geograph Res, 14: 32–41
Ge Q S, Zheng J Y, Fang X Q, et al. 2003. Winter half-year temperature reconstruction for the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and Yangtze River, China, during the past 2000 years. Holocene, 13: 933–940
Gong G F, Zhang J R, Zhang P Y. 1983. A study of the impacts of precipitation on harvest of winter wheat by the historical harvest records. Acta Meteorol Sin, 41: 444–451
Han M L. 2012. The History of China Agricultural Geography (Vol 1). Beijing: Peking University Press
Hao Z X, Zheng J Y, Ge Q S. 2003. Climate change and harvest in Xi’an since 1736: The high-resolution data derived from the archives in the Qing Dynasty. Acta Geograph Sin, 58: 735–742
Haug G H, Günther D, Peterson L C, et al. 2003. Climate and the collapse of Maya civilization. Science, 299: 1731–1735
Kenneth J Hsu. 1998. Sun, climate, hunger, and mass migration. Sci China Ser D-Earth Sci, 41: 449–472
Lee H F, Fok L, Zhang D D. 2008. Climatic change and Chinese population growth dynamics over the last millennium. Clim Change, 88: 131–156
Ni G J. 1988. The impact of climate change on the north agricultural economics in ancient times. Agr Archaeol, 1: 292–298
PAGES. 2009. Past global changes (PAGES) science plan and implementation strategy (IGBP Report No. 57) [R/OL]. Stockholm: IGBP Seceretariat. [2013-4-24]. http://www.pages-igbp.org
Tan M, Liu D S, Qin X G, et al. 1997. Preliminary study on the data from microbanding and stable isotopes of stalagmites of Beijing shihua cave. Carsol Sin, 16: 1–10
The Chinese military history writing group. 2003. Chinese All Previous Dynasties War Chronology. Beijing: Chinese Liberation Army Publishing House
Wang Z, Zhou Q B, Zhang P Y. 1995. A climate mutations in the nineteenth century. Prog Nat Sci, 5: 323–329
Wu C H. 1996. China Agricultural History. Beijing: Police Officer Education Press
Wu H. 1985. The Research of Food Yield in China. Beijing: China Agriculture Press
Xu J L, An P Q. 2004. The Twenty-Four Histories. Shanghai: Chinese Big Cictionary Press
Yancheva G, Nowaczyk N R, Mingram J, et al. 2007. Influence of the intertropical convergence zone on the East Asian monsoon. Nature, 445: 74–77
Yu Y F. 1980. The research on per mu yield of Chinese grain. J Chongqing Normal Univ Ed Soc Sci, 3: 8–20
Zhang D, JIM C Y, Lin C S, et al. 2005. Climate change, social unrest and dynastic transition in ancient China. Chin Sci Bull, 50: 137–144
Zhang D D, Jim C Y, Lin G C-S, et al. 2006. Climate change, wars and dynastic cycles in China over the last Millennium. Clim Change, 76: 459–477
Zhang D D, Brecke P, Lee H F, et al. 2007. Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 104: 19214–19219
Zhang D E, Liu C Z, Jiang J M. 1997. Reconstruction of six regional dry/wet series and their abrupt changes during the last 1000 years in east China. Quat Sci, 1: 1–11
Zhang D E. 2008. Query the validity of the monsoon led to the collapse of the Tang Dynasty by the Chinese historical climate records. Adv Climate Change Res, 4: 126–130
Zhang J C. 1982. Possible impacts of climatic variation on agriculture in China. Geograph Res, 1: 8–15
Zhang J C. 1988. The Reconstruction of Climate in China for Historical Times. Beijing: Science Press
Zhang P Z, Cheng H, Edwards R L, et al. 2008. A test of climate, sun, and culture relationships from an 1810-year Chinese cave record. Science, 322: 940–942
Zhang Y C. 1982. Research of the relations between climate change and rice area development in China in historical period. Chin Sci Bull, 4: 237–241
Zheng J Y. 1994. Mechanism of insufficient illumination on rice yield and its control technology and the difference of the response to insufficient illumination among different rice cultivars. Agricul Meteor, 6: 7–10
Zheng J Y, Man Z M, Fang X Q, et al. 2005. Temperature variation in the eastern china during Wei, Jin and South-north dynasties (220–580 AD). Quat Sci, 25: 129–140
Zheng J Y, Wang W C, Ge Q S et al. 2006. Precipitation Variability and Extreme Events in Eastern China during the Past 1500 Years. Terr Atmos Ocean Sci, 17: 579–592
Zheng J Y, Shao X M, Hao Z X, et al. 2010. An overview of research on climate change in China during the past 2000 years. Geograph Res, 29: 1561–1569
Zheng S Z. 1983. Climatic fluctuation and its effect on food production during the period 1400–1949 in Guangdong Province. Acta Geograph Sin, 38: 25–31
Zheng S Z, Feng L W. 1985. Historical evidence of unstable in China at cold period. Sci China Ser B, 11: 1038–1045
Zhou Y L. 1995. The climate change and the pass of farming-pastoral ecotone of northern China in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Fudan J (Soc Sci Ed), 1: 25–32
Zhou Y L. 2007. Chinese Historical Geography Overview. Shanghai: Shanghai Education Publishing
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Su, Y., Fang, X. & Yin, J. Impact of climate change on fluctuations of grain harvests in China from the Western Han Dynasty to the Five Dynasties (206 BC–960 AD). Sci. China Earth Sci. 57, 1701–1712 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-013-4795-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-013-4795-y