Antropogenic and natural induced coastal environmental change in southern Italian during the last 5 millenia.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Karin Zonneveld
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 273892759

This project focuses on the history of human activity and its impact on the marine coastal ecosystem. We will study the downcore marine sedimentary pollen/spores and charcoal content to establishing high temporal resolution reconstructions in vegetation and key aspects of anthropogenic impact including agricultural, industrial and fire activity. Changes the sedimentary dinoflagellate cysts composition will be used to reconstruct past marine environmental conditions including upper water trophic conditions and bottom water redox conditions.Insight in the natural and anthropogenic character of the variability will be gained by comparison with archeological and historical information and with instrumental data available in (online) databases such as the world-wide longest instrumental data series of Po-river discharge and central Italian air temperature. Furthermore we will compare the results with information of potential natural steering factors such as solar insolation, volcanic activity and variability in for the region relevant climate modes (e.g. the North Atlantic Oscillation). We will test the downcore variability in palynological signals on its cyclic character using frequency and wavelet analyses. For the project sedimentary archives of a unique high quality are available. An extensive set of marine and river mouth surface sediment samples along the western and southern Italian coast form the basis for a detailed calibration and tuning of the proxies to modern day environmental, oceanographic/aquatic, anthropogenic and climatic conditions and to obtain information about the river-specific palynological composition of the sediment load. Additional to this, dinoflagellate cyst based transfer methods will be further developed to enable the quantification of past marine environmental conditions.Laminated sediment archives from coastal southwestern Italian marine locations that can be studied with a sample resolution of one sample every three years will be investigated. These archives are located downwind the South Italian volcanoes ensuring the establishment of robust and independent tephrochronology supported chronologies. Initial focus of investigation are time intervals of large environmental and climate change, such as the pre-industrial - industrial transition (last 200 years), the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Climate Anomaly, the Roman Climate Optimum and the Homeric Transition.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants