Paper short abstract:

This paper takes colonial Singapore c.1800-1900 as a case study for investigating historic floods. It will consider: frequency, location, and scale of past inundations; how floods contributed to urban planning and mitigation; how exceptional inundation events became inscribed into community memory.

Paper long abstract:

Historic records are increasingly considered significant for understanding future climate change challenges and, more recently, nature-induced disaster, especially impact, risk, and adaption. This is important because current databases used by meteorologists and reinsurance companies for risk analysis and prediction, rarely predate the 1950s. Historic records not only provide evidence as to occurrence and scale of past weather events, but critical context as to how communities responded and adapted for future generations, if at all.

This paper takes the colonial city of Singapore c.1800-1900 as the case study for investigating historic floods. By using a combination of meteorological and narrative historic records it will chart the frequency, location, and scale of past inundations, but more significantly, it will explore how floods contributed to that city's changing urban fabric through planning and mitigation strategies, and how exceptional inundation events became inscribed into Singapore's popular memory and culture.