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Depositional and erosional processes, subsidence and sea‐level changes have strongly modified the coastal landscape of northern Adriatic lagoons. Such rapid transformations have induced significant consequences on human settlements and, thus, on the archaeological visibility of the area, still largely unexplored. We present here six metal swords fortuitously retrieved by fishermen over the last decades in front of the barrier islands of Marano Lagoon (north‐eastern Italy). Multi‐analytical analyses carried out on the artefacts (X‐ray radiography and computed micro‐tomography, radiocarbon dating and typo‐chronology) combined with the study of the coastal paleo‐environment (mainly based on historical cartography and remote sensing) allowed the items' main features to be defined, and highlighted both the historical importance of the area and the significant morphological changes that have occurred there over the last millennium. Data presented indicate that Marano Lagoon was a major hub in the northern Adriatic in the Late Middle Ages, during the crucial period of the Crusades, and in Early Modern times, connecting inland Europe with the Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, the research highlights the onset of coastal erosion that occurred in the last century after a phase of relatively geomorphic stability, possibly deriving from the intensification of human impact and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[In 2008-2014 wader and seabird nesting pairs were censused along the 220-km long coastline of the NE Adriatic Sea, in the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions (NE Italy). Fourteen species were regularly breeding, with an annual mean of 20,610 pairs (±1553, 1 SD). The most abundant species was the Yellow-legged Gull (about 13,400 pairs on average, 65% of the whole population of the study area), followed by the Common Tern (1670 pairs, 8.1%) and Common Redshank (1525 pairs, 7.4%). The whole population of waders and seabirds increased with an annual rate, estimated with the TRIM software, of +0.8%, with a greater increase (+4.3%) if the Yellow-legged Gull was not included. Twelve species were stable or increasing; only the yellow-legged gull (-1%) and the common redshank (-2.4%) were decreasing. The populations of several species exceed 10% of those estimated for the whole of Italy; those of the Eurasian Oystercatcher, Common Redshank and Sandwich Tern are among the most important in the whole Mediterranean. On average, about 8860 pairs (43%) nest in the Venice lagoon, 6,400 pairs (31%) in the Po Delta, 5100 pairs (25%) in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia lagoons. Among nesting habitats, semi-natural (such as the fish farms) and man-made sites (dredge islands) make each year about 70% of the nesting pairs. Saltmarsh islets host large numbers of Common Redshank and Sandwich Tern, while along the beach zone the only abundant species are the Yellow-legged Gull and the Eurasian Oystercatcher. The major conservation threats observed in the study area were the erosion of littoral islands, the uncontrolled occurrence of sunbathers along the beaches, the vegetation overgrowth at dredge islands, the increasing frequency of saltmarsh submersion by high tides, the strong fluctuations of water levels inside the fish farms.] [Article in Italian]

Land subsidence is a concern in many coastal plains worldwide, particularly in the low-lying areas already facing sea level rise due to climate change, and much still needs to be done, with respect to both mapping land subsidence and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the relevant cause-effect relationships. Land subsidence of the northern coastal plain encompassing the Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) region in Italy, remains, to the authors' knowledge, poorly investigated. This coastland includes low-lying agricultural and urban areas and highly valuable lagoon environments, archaeological and touristic sites, and industrial zones. Here, we resolve land subsidence in the coastal plain between the Tagliamento River delta and the Isonzo River mouth over the period 1992–2010 using Envisat ASAR and ERS1/2 interferometric datasets. We identify a large variability of the land subsidence and a spatial gradient that ranges from less than 1 mm/year in the high southwestern plain toward the littoral to more than 5 mm/year close to the Tagliamento River delta. A comparison between the 2003–2010 and 1992–2000 sinking rates depicts quite similar behaviors of the process over the two time spans. The analysis indicates unclear correlations between ground movements and the typical driving mechanisms acting in the north Adriatic coastal plains, such as the variability of the morphological setting, the subsoil characteristics and the land use. We reason that multi-component mechanisms contribute to the observed image of the subsidence in the FVG coastland. Specifically, anthropogenic activities, e.g., groundwater exploitations, hydraulic reclamations and the development of newly built-up areas, are superposed to natural mechanisms related to the spatial variability of the subsoil characteristics, typical of transitional coastal environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The study of archaeological structures has been widely applied in the Mediterranean to infer the past relative sea level (RSL), but the use of Prehistoric sites was generally scarce. Pre-Classical settlements related to past marine position are quite rare and, after their occupation phase the landscape has often dramatically changed. A peculiar situation characterizes the NW Adriatic coast, along the lagoon fringe east of Venice, where several Bronze-Age settlements have been exposed after the land reclamation carried out in the 20 th century. We analyzed the published information and collected new stratigraphic and geochronological data in five major sites where index points related to past sea-level are recorded. This research investigated in detail the geomorphological and geoarchaeological aspects, allowing to distinguish three different typologies of settlements: a) sites on Holocene fluvial ridges; b) sites on the alluvial plain of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and along groundwater-fed rivers entering in the lagoon; c) sites in the lagoon, controlling key locations. The lagoonal environment had an extent rather comparable to the modern one already 4000–3500 years BCE, when sea level was above −4 m respect mean sea level (MSL). In the second part of the early Bronze Age, around 1800 BCE, the observed RSL was between −3.0 and −2.7 m MSL, while at the transition between recent and final Bronze Age (1250–1100 BCE) it probably was at −2.0 ± 0.6 m MSL. The analyzed settlements were abandoned during the final Bronze Age, but the data testify that sea level rose progressively. This suggests that the abandonment was probably not primarily due to RSL, but to socio-cultural reasons or other environmental causes that are not yet well understood by the archaeological community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]