The Hydrosphere
and
Socioeconomics
in Modern Asia

Historical meteorological data from Netherlands East Indies

• Koninklijk Magnetisch en Meteorologisch Observatorium (Batavia), Observations made at the Royal Magnetical and Meteorological Observatory at Batavia, Batavia: Government Printing Office, 1871-1944.

  is a set of meteorological data observed in Batavia from 1866 by the Royal Magnetical and Meteorological Observatory at Batavia, which played a central role in the meteorological observation in Netherlands East Indies. Remarkably this data set includes hourly data of pressure, humidity, and precipitation.

• Koninklijk Magnetisch en Meteorologisch Observatorium (Batavia), Regenwaarnemingen in Nederlandsch-Indië (Precipitation Records in Netherlands East Indies), Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1870-1940.

  is a set of precipitation records made at various posts in Netherlands East Indies. At the start in 1879, observations were made at 124 posts mostly in Java, and the number gradually increased to 225 in 1900 beyond Java, and further to 581 in 1916.

While the above-mentioned two sets of data are partly housed at libraries of various universities, they are most complete at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (Koninklijk Nederlands Metrologisch Instituut, KNMI). In 2010-11, this institute and the Institute for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geography of Indonesia (Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika, BMKG) organized a joint project “Digitalization of Historical Data (Digitisasi Data Historis, DiDaH), digitalizing historical meteorological data after 1850¹. The data after 1901 have been open for public as Southeast Asian Climate Assessment & Dataset Project (SACA&D)². Those before this year have been digitalized, but they have not been made public, with the data still in preparation (Atsushi Ota).

Historical agricultural data from Netherlands East Indies

• Departement van Landbouw, Nijverheid en Handel,Verslag omtrent Handel, Nijverheid en Landbouw van Nederlandsch-Indie gedurende —- (Reports of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture of Netherlands in —-), Buitenzorg: Archipel-Drukkerij. 1914-1931.

  are annual reports published by the Department of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce of Netherlands East Indies. They indicate overviews of the agriculture, industry, and commerce every year with various kinds of statistics. In the section of agriculture, while most of the descriptions are about export crops, a part of them explains the situation of subsistence crops such as rice. They also mention climate as a cause of crop failure.

• Departement van Landbouw, Nijverheid en Handel, Landbouwatlas van Java en Madoera (Agricultural Atras of Java and Madura), 2 vols, Weltevreden: Departement van Landbouw, Nijverheid en Handel, 1925-26.

  is a collection of very detailed maps and statistics about the agriculture of Java and Madura, published by the Department of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce of Netherlands Dutch Indies. This is an indispensable material to study the agriculture in these regions in c. 1916-24.

• C. W. Bagchus, Maandgemiddelden en bouwgrondoccupaties per district van de negen belangrijkste Inlandsche Landbouwgewassen op Java en Madoera in de jaren 1920 tot en met 1925 (Monthly averages and occupation of the arable lands per district of the nine most important native crops on Java and Madura during the years 1920 to 1925 inclusive), Mededeelingen van het Centraal Kantoor voor de Statistiek (Bulletin of the Central Bureau of Statistics) 65, Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1929.

  is a collection of data regarding the nine most important native crops in Java and Madura. It indicates the average (partly monthly) data from 1920 to 1925 in the indices such as production of crops and occupation of arable lands. The data are organized per area and per crop.