The Mediterranean region and the Levant have returned some of the clearest evidence of a climatically dry period occurring around 4200 years ago. However, some regional evidence is controversial and contradictory, and issues remain regarding timing, progression, and regional articulation of this event. In this paper, we review the evidence from selected proxies (sea-surface temperature, precipitation, and temperature reconstructed from pollen, δ¹⁸O on speleothems, and δ¹⁸O on lacustrine carbonate) over the Mediterranean Basin to infer possible regional climate patterns during the interval between 4.3 and 3.8 ka. The values and limitations of these proxies are discussed, and their potential for furnishing information on seasonality is also explored. Despite the chronological uncertainties, which are the main limitations for disentangling details of the climatic conditions, the data suggest that winter over the Mediterranean involved drier conditions, in addition to already dry summers. However, some exceptions to this prevail – where wetter conditions seem to have persisted – suggesting regional heterogeneity in climate patterns. Temperature data, even if sparse, also suggest a cooling anomaly, even if this is not uniform. The most common paradigm to interpret the precipitation regime in the Mediterranean – a North Atlantic Oscillation-like pattern – is not completely satisfactory to interpret the selected data.

The influence of slope aspect on the distribution of landslides was studied in the Milia and Roglio basins in Tuscany, Italy. For each basin, the new Tuscany region landslide inventory that was initiated in 2010 was used. The landslides were split into separate datasets based on their prevailing movement typology. To assess the results that were obtained from the different slope aspect values, maps of the lithology, slope angle, distances to streams, and distances to tectonic lineaments were included in the bivariate statistical analysis as comparison terms. For each basin, all of the geo-environmental factor maps were compared with the different landslide typologies with GIS software. Pearson's Chi ² ( χ ² ) coefficient was used to test the degree of spatial association between each predictor variable and landslide type. In addition, Cramer's V test was used to quantify the strength of the degree of association. Next, a conditional analysis was applied to all of the possible combinations that occurred between the slope aspect and other landslide-predisposing factors. Overall, the slope aspect significantly affected the distribution of superficial landslide types, but apparently not that of other landslide types.

A cross-disciplinary (sedimentological, geochemical, micropalaeontological and archaeological) examination of 12 continuous cores, up to 20m long, integrated with stratigraphical, geomorphological and historical investigations, allows for reliable delineation of the middle-late Holocene environmental evolution in the Pisa old town area, with special emphasis on the Etruscan age transition. Depositional facies were identified through integration of sedimentological and micropalaeontological (benthic foraminifers, ostracods, phytoclasts and palynomorphs) data, while sediment dispersal patterns were reconstructed on the basis of geochemical analyses. Facies architecture was chronologically constrained by combined archaeological and radiocarbon dating. The turnaround from early Holocene, transgressive conditions to the ensuing (middle-late Holocene) phase of sea-level highstand is witnessed by a prominent shallowing-upward succession of lagoonal, paludal and then poorly drained floodplain deposits supplied by two river systems (Arno and Serchio). This 'regressive' trend, reflecting coastal progradation under nearly stable sea-level conditions, was interrupted by widespread swamp development close to the Iron-Etruscan age transition. The expansion of vast, low-lying paludal areas across the alluvial plain was mostly induced by the intricate, short-term evolution of the meandering Arno and Serchio river systems. These changes in the fluvial network, which occurred during a period of variable climate conditions, strongly influenced the early Etruscan culture (7th-5th century BC) in terms of human settlement and society behaviour. Conversely, a strong impact of human frequentation on depositional environments is observed at the transition to the Roman age (from the 1st century BC onwards), when the wetlands were drained and the modern alluvial plain started to form. The palaeoenvironmental reconstruction fits in with the original geographical descriptions mentioned in Strabo's Chronicles, and provides chronologically constrained data of fluvial evolution from the Pisa old town area. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA