Anthropogenic impact on water disasters a long-term history

In the last decades, many studies have demonstrated the impact of climate and natural disaster on various level, as political, economic, social and cultural. Particularly water, with its scarcity or excessive abundance has played a fundamental role in the relationship between men and his habitat that have been more and more evident nowadays. Starting from this perspective, the case study will be focused on the diachronical analysis of the impact of water disasters on Rome and its territory, taking under consideration the perception of calamities apart from the daily cohabitation with a problematic habitat and the evaluation of ways and times in reacting to disaster, in terms of policies of managing and of prevention and in terms of technologies. The aim is to enlighten not only the impact of natural phenomena on the urban scale, but also the anthropogenic impact on the territory and consequently the proportion with which human activities have been able on one hand to improve or accelerate, on the other to prevent disasters related to climate changes. In this perspective, the paper aims to contribute with historical and archaeological evidences to the debate on climate changes, focusing on the necessity to evaluate new strategies of reacting to natural solicitations, through reconciling human needs, in terms of production and settlements, with a sustainable managing of the habitat also based on the knowing of the past.