Environment-human relationships in historical times: The balance between urban development and natural forces at Leptis Magna (Libya)

The relationships between human modification of the environment and natural events in the Roman city of Lepti Magna (UNESCO world heritage), western Libya, are analyzed. For the first time, the history of Leptis Magna is tested against a geomorphological and stratigraphical reconstruction and radiocarbon dating. Historical and archaeological interpretations or analyses indicate the occurrence of different extreme natural events as the cause of the town’s decline: earthquakes, flooding and tsunami. Geological and geomorphological surveys investigated the dynamics of the nearby Wadi Lebda, a major dryland stream that forms the depositional and erosional systems of the settlement area. Alluvial phases were studied by applying traditional stratigraphic analyses of outcrops and hand-cores. Additionally, the mapped flights of inset terrace surfaces provided insights into the human modifications of the natural depositional/erosional environment during historical times and the following alluvial phases affecting the Leptis Magna harbor. The results integrate the archaeological knowledge by providing some independent chronological constraints, and indicate that Leptis Magna history was tightly linked to the Wadi Lebda. Aware of the hazards related to devastating flooding, the Romans were able to cope with the threat posed by the wadi by performing engineering defensive hydraulic works around the town (dam and artificial channels). Once the economic decay began and the society could no longer guarantee the ongoing maintenance of these structures, the decline of the settlement started and the occurrence of destructive floods reclaimed the populated areas. Conversely, the occurrence of a large earthquake (365 CE), or of a tsunami that caused the disruption of the hydraulic systems and the infill of the harbor, has been discarded as primary cause of the decline of Leptis Magna

Environment-man relationships in historical times: the balance between urban development and natural forces at Leptis Magna (Libya).

We analyze the relationships between human modification of the environment and natural events in the Roman city of Leptis Magna (UNESCO world heritage), western Libya. For the first time the history of Leptis Magna is tested against a high resolution geo-morphological and stratigraphical reconstruction and absolute radiocarbon dating. Historical and archaeological sources indicate the occurrence of different natural events as the cause of the town decline: earthquakes, flooding, and tsunamis. Our data indicate that Leptis Magna was tightly linked to the nearby wadi. In fact, aware of the hazards related to violent flooding, the Romans were able to cope with the threat posed by the wadi by engineering defensive hydraulic works around the town. Once economic decay began and the society could no longer guarantee the ongoing maintenance of these structures, the decline of the settlement began and the occurrence of violent floods reclaimed the populated areas. The occurrence of large earthquakes, and the tsunami event that damaged the harbor have been discarded as playing a primary role in the decline of Leptis Magna

Arpi

Dans le cadre du programme « Arpi. Formes et vie d’une cité italiote » qui a débuté en 2014, le Centre Jean Bérard (USR 3133 CNRS-EFR) et l’Université de Salerne, en collaboration avec la Surintendance archéologique des Pouilles, ont étendu leur étude à l’ensemble des domus mises au jour lors de fouilles entreprises par la Surintendance à partir des années 1939 et 1941. Ce travail qui répond à l’objectif présenté dans la Chronique 2015, à savoir la reconstruction de la ville d’Arpi à travers ..

Inequality in Human Development: An Empirical Assessment of 32 Countries

One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that is does not take into account inequality within countries in its three dimensions. In this paper, we apply a simply approach to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows a comparison of the level in human development of the poor with the level of the non-poor within countries, but also across countries. This is an application of the method presented in Grimm et al. (World Development 36(12):2527–2546, 2008) to a sample of 21 low and middle income countries and 11 industrialized countries. In particular the inclusion of the industrialized countries, which were not included in the previous work, implies to deal with a number of additional challenges, which we outline in this paper. Our results show that inequality in human development within countries is high, both in developed and industrialized countries. In fact, the HDI of the lowest quintiles in industrialized countries is often below the HDI of the richest quintile in many middle income countries. We also find, however, a strong overall negative correlation between the level of human development and inequality in human development

Arpi. Formes et modes de vie d’une cité italiote (IVe-IIe siècle av. n.è.)

Le texte de ces Chroniques présente la troisième et dernière étape préliminaire du programme de recherches sur Arpi : formes et modes de vie d’une cité italiote, qui a débuté en 2014 et vise à produire une synthèse sur les formes de l’habitat d’époque hellénistique. La double particularité du projet se reflète dans la composition de cette contribution : il prend appui, d’une part, sur l’étude topographique, stratigraphique et matérielle, des données de fouilles anciennes conduites sous la responsabilité de la Surintendance entre le début de la seconde guerre mondiale et la fin des années 1990, d’autre part sur la mise à jour des découvertes dans une base géoréférencée, sur une enquête d’archéologie des paysages, avec une approche archéomorphologique, géomorphologique et géophysique, et sur des prospections pédestres. La recontextualisation qui en résulte n’est possible que grâce à la complémentarité des expériences et des compétences réunies par la Surintendance des Pouilles, puis de Foggia, du Centre Jean Bérard et de l’Université de Salerne. Elle a été conduite à plusieurs échelles, de la maison au territoire, pour mieux définir les contraintes, les ressources et l’évolution du paysage au sein duquel s’est développé ce phénomène urbain de très grande envergure et encore difficile à cerner sur l’ensemble de l’espace limité par l’agger

Where are we now with European forest multi-taxon biodiversity and where can we head to?

The European biodiversity and forest strategies rely on forest sustainable management (SFM) to conserve forest biodiversity. However, current sustainability assessments hardly account for direct biodiversity indicators. We focused on forest multi-taxon biodiversity to: i) gather and map the existing information; ii) identify knowledge and research gaps; iii) discuss its research potential. We established a research network to fit data on species, standing trees, lying deadwood and sampling unit description from 34 local datasets across 3591 sampling units. A total of 8724 species were represented, with the share of common and rare species varying across taxonomic classes: some included many species with several rare ones (e.g., Insecta); others (e.g., Bryopsida) were represented by few common species. Tree-related structural attributes were sampled in a subset of sampling units (2889; 2356; 2309 and 1388 respectively for diameter, height, deadwood and microhabitats). Overall, multi-taxon studies are biased towards mature forests and may underrepresent the species related to other developmental phases. European forest compositional categories were all represented, but beech forests were over-represented as compared to thermophilous and boreal forests. Most sampling units (94%) were referred to a habitat type of conservation concern. Existing information may support European conservation and SFM strategies in: (i) methodological harmonization and coordinated monitoring; (ii) definition and testing of SFM indicators and thresholds; (iii) data-driven assessment of the effects of environmental and management drivers on multi-taxon forest biological and functional diversity, (iv) multi-scale forest monitoring integrating in-situ and remotely sensed information

ECLAIRE: Effects of Climate Change on Air Pollution Impacts and Response Strategies for European Ecosystems. Project final report

The central goal of ECLAIRE is to assess how climate change will alter the extent to which air pollutants threaten terrestrial ecosystems. Particular attention has been given to nitrogen compounds, especially nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia (NH3), as well as Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (BVOCs) in relation to tropospheric ozone (O3) formation, including their interactions with aerosol components. ECLAIRE has combined a broad program of field and laboratory experimentation and modelling of pollution fluxes and ecosystem impacts, advancing both mechanistic understanding and providing support to European policy makers. The central finding of ECLAIRE is that future climate change is expected to worsen the threat of air pollutants on Europe’s ecosystems. Firstly, climate warming is expected to increase the emissions of many trace gases, such as agricultural NH3, the soil component of NOx emissions and key BVOCs. Experimental data and numerical models show how these effects will tend to increase atmospheric N deposition in future. By contrast, the net effect on tropospheric O3 is less clear. This is because parallel increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations will offset the temperature-driven increase for some BVOCs, such as isoprene. By contrast, there is currently insufficient evidence to be confident that CO2 will offset anticipated climate increases in monoterpene emissions. Secondly, climate warming is found to be likely to increase the vulnerability of ecosystems towards air pollutant exposure or atmospheric deposition. Such effects may occur as a consequence of combined perturbation, as well as through specific interactions, such as between drought, O3, N and aerosol exposure. These combined effects of climate change are expected to offset part of the benefit of current emissions control policies. Unless decisive mitigation actions are taken, it is anticipated that ongoing climate warming will increase agricultural and other biogenic emissions, posing a challenge for national emissions ceilings and air quality objectives related to nitrogen and ozone pollution. The O3 effects will be further worsened if progress is not made to curb increases in methane (CH4) emissions in the northern hemisphere. Other key findings of ECLAIRE are that: 1) N deposition and O3 have adverse synergistic effects. Exposure to ambient O3 concentrations was shown to reduce the Nitrogen Use Efficiency of plants, both decreasing agricultural production and posing an increased risk of other forms of nitrogen pollution, such as nitrate leaching (NO3-) and the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O); 2) within-canopy dynamics for volatile aerosol can increase dry deposition and shorten atmospheric lifetimes; 3) ambient aerosol levels reduce the ability of plants to conserve water under drought conditions; 4) low-resolution mapping studies tend to underestimate the extent of local critical loads exceedance; 5) new dose-response functions can be used to improve the assessment of costs, including estimation of the value of damage due to air pollution effects on ecosystems, 6) scenarios can be constructed that combine technical mitigation measures with dietary change options (reducing livestock products in food down to recommended levels for health criteria), with the balance between the two strategies being a matter for future societal discussion. ECLAIRE has supported the revision process for the National Emissions Ceilings Directive and will continue to deliver scientific underpinning into the future for the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution

ECLAIRE third periodic report

The ÉCLAIRE project (Effects of Climate Change on Air Pollution Impacts and Response Strategies for European Ecosystems) is a four year (2011-2015) project funded by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7)