Elements of slope and fluvial dynamics as evidence of Late Holocene climatic fluctuations in the central Adriatic sector, Italy

Abstract

The present work aims at pointing out possible geomorphological indicators of climatic fluctuations detected within the Central Adriatic Region of Italy and whose activation and evolution is closely connected to superficial and ground circulation of large quantities of water. It shows and analyzes several indicators in three different sample areas, which are extremely representative of the same number of physiographic units of the Central Adriatic region in Italy and of the correspondent fluvial systems: mass movements and flooding processes in a wide sector of the central Apennine; fast erosion processes and landslides in the peri-Adriatic sector; historical variations along a portion of the Adriatic shoreline. The choice of such different «environments» is not casual; in fact, the shape of a river mouth depends on the strict equilibrium among slope, river and coastal dynamics. In a given period, without significant eustatic variations, it represents the «memory» of complex environmental transformation triggered by natural or human processes within the river catchments. The collected data have been subsequently compared with those available in literature for Mediterranean Europe. The possibility to relate climatic events and geomorphological features coming from such different areas is based on the proven congruence of their morphoclimatic settings.