Risk, Climate Change and Sustainable Development
Theme 1: Recognition, analysis and reduction of geo-hydrological processes for the purpose of conservation and enhancement of the cultural and landscape heritage of the Upper Arroscia Valley
Reference: Luca Ferraris (DIBRIS), Francesco Faccini (DISTAV, UniGE)
Funding: Agenzia per la Coesione territoriale (Fondo per lo sviluppo e la coesione). The annual gross amount of the grant, including social security expenses to be paid by the recipient, is € 16.500,00
Abstract: The upper Arroscia Valley is historically affected by geo-hydrological processes: landslides, debris and mud-flows, and riverine floods characterize the whole territory due to the interaction between intense meteo-hydrological phenomena and the geological features of the environment, also influenced by anthropogenic modifications. Most of the slope settlements lie on ancient and relict landslides, many of them reactivated following heavy or prolonged rainfall events. Over the past decade, geo-hydrological processes with significant ground effects have occurred in the municipalities of Cosio d'Arroscia, Mendatica (Monesi), Montegrosso Pian Latte, Pornassio, and Rezzo (Cenova and Borghetto di Lavina). In all of these cases there were road blockages and evacuation of residential buildings.
The Ph.D. proposal concerns the development of studies and research on geo-hydrological processes in the upper Arroscia Valley with the following objectives:
original and detailed landslide inventory map production through historical archival research and field surveys, with related database;
landslide activity analysis through monitoring instrumentation and remote sensing data, with special reference to the PsinSar technique and the use of three-dimensional aerophotogrammetry acquired by UAV;
experimental rainfall-induced landslide susceptibility map production;
landslide factors assessment, both of processes detected in the area and of potential ones;
evaluation of the interaction of processes, both detected and potential, with infrastructure and services in the area.
The above goals are considered an useful baseline for: a) plan and undertake geo-hydrological risk reduction interventions, both structural by emphasizing Nature Based Solutions, and non-structural, and thus ensure the accessibility of the resident and transient population to essential services; b) plan civil defense and emergency management activities.; c) promote the richness of the territory and local realities, enhance natural and cultural resources; d) to encourage the permanent residence of the population, also in order to keep the cultural heritage and landscape active. It should be noted that the area under consideration is part of the Ligurian Alps Regional Nature Park.
Theme 2: The sustainability in the past: rural archaeology for the study of the practices of social occupation of the space and their seasonality inside and outside settlements
Reference: Anna Maria Stagno (DAFIST, UniGE)
Funding: grant funded in the framework of the project “KORE – Archaeology of dwelling: material evidence and seasonality of homing practices between settlements, spaces and resources in European uplands (16th-21st c. AD)” (FARE 2022 - CUP n. D33C21000240001). The gross annual amount of the scholarship is € 16.500 including social security contributions charged to the scholarship recipient.
Abstract: The theme of dwelling and homing in different places and contexts is at the center of the reflection of the social and human sciences, also in relation to the strong push towards mobility of today's society and planetary migrations. The historical perspective on how people moved and interacted with different spaces shows that the concept of home is very diverse in different contexts and often linked to multiple places rather than just one. In the framework of the KORE research project, devoted to the homing practices and their seasonality, the PhD project aims to understand the relationships between seasonal settlements, permanents ones and the practices to manage environmental resources between 16th and 21st c., through case studies in the European Mountain. The proposal is to investigate, through archaeological methods, the social and relational dimension of practices, connecting the seasonality of rural and pastoral practices with life cycles and the homing practices. The intention is to reflect, proceeding from the home to the external spaces and back, on what in the micro-historical analysis has been defined as the "social construction of space". Starting from the study of seasonal settlements as spaces of social interaction and practices, the research will focus on one or more of the following topics: to test the historical reliability of categories such as "seasonal" or "permanent" (perhaps a lens with which today we read a way of living that we no longer understand); to decipher the historical complexity of the concept of sustainability, related not only to economic and environmental dimensions, but also, and inextricably correlated, to social ones; to study the changes in the relationships between seasonal, permanent settlements and spaces through time, with the aim to understand how the way to appropriate and construct the social space; to decipher how the role of environmental resources management practices in the social life of local collectivities changed through time, and the environmental and social effects of their changes or disappearing.
Link to the group or personal webpage:
http://www.lasa.unige.it/gruppo.php
https://dafist.unige.it/node/252
References
G. Bizzarri, A. M. Stagno Exploring the “extended” household? Historical landscapes, material culture and building materials at the Monte Fasce settlements, Liguria, Italy (17th-21st c.), in C. Tente, C. Theune (eds.) Household goods in the European Medieval and Early Modern Countryside, Leiden, Sidestone press, 2023, pp. 63-80.
E. Costello, E. Svensson (eds.), Historical archaeologies of transhumance across Europe, Oxon, Routledge, 2018.
P. Dixon, C. Theune, (eds.), Seasonal settlement in the medieval and early modern countryside. Leiden, Sidestone Press, 2021.
J. Collis, M. Pearce, F. Nicolis (eds.), Summer farms: seasonal exploitation of the uplands from prehistory to the present, Sheffield, J.R. Collis Publications, 2016.
A. M. Stagno, Investigating rural change. Legal access rights and changing lifestyles in rural mountain communities (Ligurian Apennines, Italy, 16th-21st centuries), «World Archaeology», vol. 51, 2019, pp. 311-327.
A. Torre, Places. Production of Locality in the Early Modern and Modern Age, Routledge, 2020 (v.o. Luoghi. La produzione di località in età moderna e contemporanea, Donzelli Editore, 2011).