Cycles of high frequency and magnitude of flooding in the Mediterranean coastal plains are a good indicator of Holocene and historical climate variability, comparable to other manifestations of change such as high frequency cycles of coastal storms or fluctuations in glaciers. These phases promote a great dynamism in the processes and shape the most recent morphological features of the coastal floodplains. The sub-environments of floodplain, deltaic front and fringing wetlands function in the face of change as a "cascading geomorphological system" in which processes are interconnected. The analysis of their dynamics must take into account the multiple connections that exist. The intense and ancient human occupation of these areas makes for an exceptional combination of natural and anthropic history. For this reason, there is a wealth of documentary information about climatic events, processes and human action. 

Changes and discontinuities in natural systems correspond to thresholds and tipping points, controlled by environmental resilience, climate variability and human activity. This paradigm is a topic of growing interest among researchers in the earth sciences, social sciences and humanities who focus on climate, environmental change and society. The number of papers is steadily increasing and it is no coincidence that many proposals for methodological revision are produced in the Mediterranean area. For many years there have been renewed efforts to demonstrate the exceptional character of this region where natural and human history combine. For 10,000 years the Mediterranean has had a long history of civilisations; an international community of specialists has been studying Neolithic, Bronze, Roman, Medieval etc. for some time. Thus, there is no region in the world that possesses a comparable body of knowledge about its historical and prehistoric societies. At the same time, the Mediterranean physical environment has attracted the attention of geologists, geographers, climatologists and other earth scientists. All these researchers from different disciplines have a common challenge: to understand the interaction between climate, climate change, environment and society. Many contacts and collaborations between the disciplines of earth sciences and the history of human activity started very early on in interdisciplinary projects. It has become evident that environmental change and breaks or discontinuities can be related not only to climatic variability or the particular regional context, but also to anthropogenic activity that has largely accelerated or redirected landscape evolution.

Research and experimental development on social sciences and humanities