GEOMORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF SLOPES AND CLIMATE CHANGES: LANDSLIDE ANALYSIS AND PALEOCLIMATIC RECONSTRUCTIONS IN NORTHERN ITALY – AN OUTLINE OF A NATIONAL RESEARCH PROJECT

The scientific research on global changes is nowadays largely focused on the aspects of past environments which enable our understanding and capability of forecasting and challenging future scenarios. In this framework, the contribution of Geomorphology to paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental reconstructions is certainly significant: the morphogenetic processes which occur on the earth’s surface are definitely influenced by climate and, therefore, landforms and superficial deposits may be adopted for assessing the evolution of a landscape in a particular climatic framework. A national research project has been recently founded by the Italian Ministry of Instruction, University and Research (COFIN 2002, Scientific Coordinator: M. Soldati) dealing with the study of the relationships between climate and slope evolution, with particular attention to landslides. More precisely, the aim is to assess the correspondence between concentrations of landslides and climatic events from the Lateglacial to date, with reference to the Southern Alps and Northern Apennines, by adopting slope instability processes as geomorphological indicators of climatic changes. The research, which involves the Universities of Milan, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Padua, Parma and Turin and some public institutions, is aimed to: - define the state of the art at an international level; - create an archive of dated landslides since the Lateglacial in the southern Alps and in the northern Apennines, using GIS; - analyse landslide phenomena which are believed to be significant indicators of climatic variations; - date landslide events with radiometric, incremental methods etc.; - reconstruct paleoclimatic conditions at the local scale in study areas, by means also of pollen analyses; - evaluate the importance of climatic control vs. type of landslides and the influence of climatic crisis on the occurrence of landslides; - assess the influence of non-climatic causes, such as paleoseismicity and human impact in prehistoric times; - define evolution models with respect to different hydrogeologic and environmental boundary conditions. This is a promising approach with high potentiality since the analysis of landslide activity is fundamental for understanding present and future evolution of slopes and to assess geomorphological hazards.