Re-interpreting the past weather encounters in the lens of disaster response

Climate extremes affect cities politically, economically, and socially. Throughout history, societies dealt with many climate-induced disasters which resulted in monetary and non-monetary losses. While acknowledging the climate disasters in the city of Rize in Turkey, the local communities have sometimes failed to recover from them. Re-thinking past weather-induced hazards such as droughts, floods, and landslides in the city depict how the past societies and authorities responded to these disasters. Therefore, the impacts of past climate events can draw a delicate picture of the disaster preparation, recovery from climate-induced hazards.

The perception of ‘living together with disasters’ has evolved over time. The earlier documentation of weather-related disasters since the 1920s reveals a lot of information on the past decision processes. This paper investigates the societal impacts and responses to slow and sudden onset climate events such as droughts, floods, wind surges, and landslides through national archival of the Republic of Turkey in the past. The results of this study reveal the impacts of the best practices and failures in terms of decision making on the societies and what we can learn from them to manage disasters and overcome the emerging issues of environmental justice and inclusion.