Environment–human relationships in historical times: The balance between urban development and natural forces at Leptis Magna (Libya)

A critical review of environmental assessment tools for sustainable urban design

“…Therefore, urban sustainability assessment methods (USAM) have the potential to assist in achieving a balance between the needs of humans and the environment, thus improving the quality of life and the economic competitiveness of the urban area. The success of USAM depends on urban design elements being part of the sustainable development process (Pucci et al, 2011) and the prospects of dealing with urban problems in the long term. In addition, sustainability assessment methods promote sustainable urbanization and enable governments and international institutions to achieve an optimum value of urban sustainability (Shen et al, 2011).…”

Destruction Layers, Urban Evolution, and Earthquakes in Roman Patras, Greece

“…This is a new, town‐oriented and statistical approach for the identification of earthquakes and is different from the deterministic approach based on a wealth of data by Galli and Mollin () for Rome, or from various other approaches proposed so far: geology‐enhanced approaches (Altunel, ; Puci et al, ; Stiros et al., ), fault‐modeling‐enhanced approaches (Stiros, ), seismology‐enhanced approaches (Hinzen, ; Stiros, ; Jusseret et al., ), regional, feature‐oriented approaches (focusing on inscriptions not mentioning destruction and causes of destruction approaches; Stiros et al., ), or modeling of damage expected by seismic motions (Hinzen et al., ). The proposed methodology is expected to prove useful in many ancient towns in which a large number of excavations exist, especially for regions with relatively large recurrence intervals of earthquakes ( cf .…”

The periphery of Lepcis Magna: new data related to the ancient road network and land partition

“…Moreover, even if this infrastructure was built mainly for the city's needs, it cannot be excluded that its water was also used for rural villas and estates located along and near its route (for this aspect, see Wilson 1999; 2008, 309–11). In addition, the construction of the dam along Wadi Lebda, recently dated to the Hadrianic period (Pucci et al 2011, 175–77, 183; Tantillo and Bigi 2010, 155–58), together with the use of the east sector of the Monticelli agger and ditch could be related with the new limitatio (Figure 9). It is likely indeed that the Wadi Lebda water surplus of the rainy seasons could be easily diverted to the east and used to irrigate the fields (archaeological evidence of the east sector of the earthen agger and its ditch come from the WWII RAF aerial photographs and from MC 1913, I, 63).…”