Options
Tunno, I.
Loading...
2 results
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
- PublicationOpen AccessEFFECTS OF HUMAN IMPACTS AND CLIMATE VARIATIONS ON FOREST: THE RIETI BASIN SINCE MEDIEVAL TIME(2013)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;Mensing, S.; Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, USA ;Tunno, I.; DAFNE, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy ;Cifani, G.; DSFBT, Unversity of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy ;Florindo, F.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma2, Roma, Italia ;Noble, P.; Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, USA ;Sagnotti, L.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma2, Roma, Italia ;Piovesan, G.; DAFNE, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy; ; ; ; ; ; a number of recent paleoenvironmental studies have argued that abrupt changes in climate have been the primary cause for societal collapse. Many social scientists, including anthropologists and environmental historians, reject environmental explanations as deterministic and overly simplistic. they argue that socio-political decisions contribute to environmental change and that efforts to study societal vulnerability within a human-environment system must include analysis of complex social structures. there is a gap in our understanding of how past societies responded to climate change because there are very few interdisciplinary studies that integrate both physical and behavioral sciences in paleoenvironmental reconstructions. While there is a general sense that modern societies are more insulated than pre-industrial societies from the effects of climate change, this may not prove to be true. a more complete understanding of how both natural and human-caused changes have affected the environment in the past can potentially guide decisions aimed at promoting future sustainability. here we present a project funded by the united states National science foundation that will explicitly integrate paleoenvironmental reconstruction with socioeconomic history in a local context to identify linkages between social and environmental change associated with climate variability.240 114 - PublicationRestricted2700 years of Mediterranean environmental change in central Italy: a synthesis of sedimentary and cultural records to interpret past impacts of climate on society(2015-03-23)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;Mesing, S. A. ;Tunno, I.; Univ. degli Studi della Tuscia (Italia) ;Sagnotti, L.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma2, Roma, Italia ;Florindo, F.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma2, Roma, Italia ;Noble, P.; Univ. Nevada (USA) ;Archer, C.; Univ. Nevada (USA) ;Zimmerman, S.; Lawrence Livermore N. Lab. (USA) ;Pavón-Carrasco, F. J.; Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma2, Roma, Italia ;Cifani, G.; Univ. Tor Vergata (Italia) ;Passigli, S.; Univ. Tor Vergata (Italia) ;Piovesan, G.; Univ. degli Studi della Tuscia (Italia) ;; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Abrupt climate change in the past is thought to have disrupted societies by accelerating environmental degradation, potentially leading to cultural collapse. Linking climate change directly to societal disruption is challenging because socioeconomic factors also play a large role, with climate being secondary or sometimes inconsequential. Combining paleolimnologic, historical, and archaeological methods provides for a more secure basis for interpreting the past impacts of climate on society. We present pollen, nonpollen palynomorph, geochemical, paleomagnetic and sedimentary data from a high-resolution 2700 yr lake sediment core from central Italy and compare these data with local historical documents and archeological surveys to reconstruct a record of environmental change in relation to socioeconomic history and climatic fluctuations. Here we document cases in which environmental change is strongly linked to changes in local land management practices in the absence of clear climatic change, as well as examples when climate change appears to have been a strong catalyst that resulted in significant environmental change that impacted local communities. During the Imperial Roman period, despite a long period of stable, mild climate, and a large urban population in nearby Rome, our site shows only limited evidence for environmental degradation. Warm and mild climate during the Medieval Warm period, on the other hand, led to widespread deforestation and erosion. The ability of the Romans to utilize imported resources through an extensive trade network may have allowed for preservation of the environment near the Roman capital, whereas during medieval time, the need to rely on local resources led to environmental degradation. Cool wet climate during the Little Ice Age led to a breakdown in local land use practices, widespread land abandonment and rapid reforestation. Our results present a highresolution regional case study that explores the effect of climate change on society for an underdocumented region of Europe.566 220