Glaciers worldwide are shrinking at an accelerated rate as the climate changes in response to anthropogenic influence. While increasing air temperature is the main factor behind glacier mass and volume loss, variable patterns of precipitation distribution also play a role, though these are not as well understood. Furthermore, while the response of surface glaciers (from large polar ice sheets to small alpine glaciers) to climatic changes is well documented and continuously monitored, little to nothing is known about how cave glaciers (perennial ice accumulations in rock-hosted caves) react to atmospheric warming. In this context, we present here the response of cave and surface glaciers in SE Europe to the extreme precipitation events occurring between May and July 2019 in SE Europe. Surface glaciers in the northern Balkan Peninsula lost between 17 % and 19 % of their total area, while cave glaciers in Croatia, Greece, Romania and Slovenia lost ice at levels higher than any recorded by instrumental observations during the past decades. The melting was likely the result of large amounts of warm water delivered directly to the surface of the glaciers, leading to rapid reduction in the area of surface glaciers and the thickness of cave glaciers. As climate models predict that such extreme precipitation events are set to increase in frequency and intensity, the presence of cave glaciers in SE Europe and the paleoclimatic information they host may be lost in the near future. Moreover, the same projected continuous warming and increase in precipitation extremes could pose an additional threat to the alpine glaciers in southern Europe, resulting in faster-than-predicted melting.

The Roman military fort Tibiscum which existed from the beginning of the second up to the third quarter of the third century ad was manned by various auxiliary units, including Syrian Palmyrenians and Germanic Vindelici. Its irregular shape and relatively big surface, usual for the forts of that type, as well as not having entirely clear settlement structures visible on both sides of the Timiş River drew attention of many scholars. The non‐destructive research project carried out in 2014–2016 allowed to reassess the ancient landscape around the fort. Although the site was excavated for almost 100 years, the rural hinterland of Tibiscum has never been investigated systematically. An integrated archaeological prospection method combined with the use of modern surveying tools resulted in establishing the accurate position of the known extramural remains and the location of a dozen of new sites and features within the radius of ca 3 km around the fort. The results of the surveys compared with the old maps and previous excavations led to the new conclusions concerning the topography of Roman Tibiscum and the development of the civilian settlement in its vicinity. The analysis of acquired archaeological data compared with historical sources give assumptions to the question of the existence of a separate town on the east side of the Timiş River which was granted municipal status by the end of the second century ad. The authors of the present article are rather willing to believe that it was the extramural settlement (vicus), located on the west bank of Timiş, which was granted municipal rights, probably at the end of the second or at the beginning of the third century ad.

Levees are earth structures constructed along alluvial rivers and are considered to be one of the essential components of flood risk and natural hazard reduction. The preservation of their condition would require orderly monitoring. In Hungary, an over 4200 km long levee system was constructed from the 19th century on. Since then, many natural and anthropogenic processes, such as compaction, erosion, subsidence etc., could contribute to the slow but steady deformation of these structures. In the meantime , due to the lack of documentation, their structure and internal composition are still unclear in many sections. The present study uses different geophysical techniques to validate their efficiency in detecting the structure, composition and potential defects along a 3.6 km levee section of the Lower Tisza River, affected significantly by seepage and piping phenomena during floods. Measurements were made using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and drillings. Information obtained by the different techniques was cross-checked and combined. This way, the potential of the applied survey strategy could be demonstrated, and the selected levee section could be assessed in terms of its structure and composition. Consequently, the major reasons for frequently occurring adverse flood phenomena at the site could be revealed. The survey approach outlined in the present paper can be applied extensively along lowland levee systems in the region and elsewhere.

The intensive use of geophysics in archaeological investigations demands new ways of fast and meaningful data interpretation. With the increasing size and complexity of magnetometer data, manual identification and delineation of magnetic anomalies becomes a time‐consuming activity. In this respect, our study introduces a new approach to automate this laborious procedure, implemented as a ready‐to‐use tool within the eCognition® software. The approach relies on a multiresolution segmentation (MRS) algorithm, which is applied on a single layer containing magnetic values. Magnetic anomalies are automatically identified and delineated at three levels of scale. Magnetic anomalies are thus classified as potential archaeological features. The degree of departure from a normal distribution is adjustable at 0.5 and 1 standard deviation (SD), respectively. The approach was tested on magnetometer images of a buried medieval village in the west of Romania. The data were acquired along parallel profiles covering six squares of 100 m × 100 m each. We have deliberately selected this magnetic map because it is not the top in terms of magnetic results and it provides staggers (due to data acquisition in 100 m grids) to show that if this algorithm works on this magnetic map, it will work defiantly on those where archaeological structures/anomalies are even more regulated. The tested scenes indicated accurate results, displaying positive‐ and negative‐valued magnetic anomalies with levels of detail almost similar to manually delineated anomalies. Our approach is simple to apply. Being implemented as a customized process for the eCognition® software, the tool attached to the article repository has a significant potential to support interpretation of any type of image obtained through geophysical measurements and we consider it an aid for large‐scale surveys.

Artificial levees have major importance in protecting human lives and infrastructure as they are essential elements of the flood protection measures. Nevertheless, the lack of the necessary information about their structure and internal composition might cause high risks. To monitor their stability, integrated surveys are needed, including geophysical and geotechnical methods. Levees along the rivers in Hungary were constructed more than 150 years ago, and they were heightened several times; therefore, investigations are required to assure their performance in flood risk mitigation. Our investigation aimed to utilise non-invasive geophysical techniques, primarily electrical resistivity imaging, with the validation of geotechnical investigations to map and compare the compositional and structural variations of two very different levee sections along River Tisza and River Maros. Integrating the analysed drilling data with ERT profiles showed that the main composition of the investigated Tisza levee section is fine and medium silt with an average resistivity 30 Ωm, however, the investigated section of Maros levee was built of not only of fine and medium silt but also of medium and coarse sand exhibiting higher resistivity values reaching up to 2200 Ωm. Several physical parameters were measured to study the nature of constituting levee materials like moisture content, grain-size, porosity, bulk-density, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and resistivity. It was found that most of them show a connection with resistivity, but the hydraulic conductivity did not show a direct connection, however the latter could exhibit the aquitard nature of Tisza levee materials and the non-aquitard nature of Maros levee materials.