ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with some general thoughts on disaster perception, management and memory. It discusses the most important sources for historical flood reconstruction with a particular focus on cultural perception and socio-economic management. The study of natural hazards from a cultural history perspective has become very popular in the last two decades. These studies tend to focus on the perception, interpretation, management and commemoration of events by those affected and by human societies in general. Historical flood marks like these are only useful up to a point for hydrological research. In many places natural dynamic processes in the watercourse have altered the riverbed enormously during the last 500 years. Furthermore, anthropogenic impacts have been responsible for the realignment of channels, especially in advance of more recent commercial and industrial uses of rivers.
