Glacial and periglacial environments

High mountain environments are particularly sensitive to climate fluctuations. In particular, contemporary atmospheric temperature rise induces glacier retreat and permafrost degradation, which in turn affect water and sediment budgets, as well as geohazard potential related to outburst floods and mass wasting processes. From a long-term perspective, glaciers and rock glaciers represent valuable climatic proxies for reconstructing paraglacial response and postglacial landscape evolution. In the context of the Central and Eastern Italian Alps, we conduct research focused on the environmental factors that control the spatial distribution of glaciers and rock glaciers at multiple time and spatial scales. Current research themes include: (i) compilation of multi-temporal glacier inventories at the regional scale for inferring climatic controls on glacier retreat; (ii) compilation of regional rock glacier inventories for constraining the spatial distribution of discontinuous permafrost; (iii) the impact of moraines and rock glaciers on contemporary sediment fluxes; (iv) mass balance of small Alpine glaciers; (v) post-LGM reconstruction of landscape evolution in formerly glaciated valleys through Schmidt Hammer Dating and paleo ELA reconstruction. We conduct these activities in collaboration with the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (Ufficio Geologia e Prove Materiali) as well as with the Servizio Glaciologico Lombardo