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The history of Melito Irpino, a small village in southern Italy is particular, though not unique in its genre. The development of its urban asset was, in fact, strongly affected by natural disasters such as hydrogeological and seismic events, which determined its transfer to another location. Due to its landslides and flooding it has been included since the beginning of the twentieth century among the unstable centers to be consolidated. The landslides were caused by peculiar geological characteristics of which the substrate essentially origins from different consistency Flysch elements. From the seismic point of view, Melito Irpino is part of the first category of the new seismic classification of the Campania Region. The most devastating earthquakes that damaged Melito date back to December 1456, which hit central and southern Italy and 5th June , 1688 which had the Sannio as epicentral area, both with l0 = XI MCS and M> 7 [1456: l0= XI MCS, Mw 7.2; 1688: l0 = XI MCS, Mw 7.O.] During the twentieth century, it was involved in two other disastrous earthquakes that caused serious damage to the village in 1930 with an intensity VIII and in 1962 with I = IX MCS and VIII ESI-07 intensity. The earthquake of 21st August 1962 was fatal for the village of Melito. In December of the same year it was left with 2182 inhabitants and 800 houses, most of which were unstable, 300 were to be demolished, 50 unrepairable and 200 were still uninhabitable yet repairable. From a geological point of view the situation turned even more dramatically when the whole valley area stretching from the old Ufita River bridge and the historical center of Melito was affected by a series of large slope instability such as rock falls, complex rotational slip, de facto complicating an extremely compromised situation. This was sufficient to encourage the transfer of the entire village in an other location. After more than half a century and considering the effects of two important earthquakes in 1962 and 1980, Melito now features as rebuilt 2 km far from the original historical center. However, all measures of reconstruction have limits, positive and negative aspects. The modern urban aspect seems to be far away from the original rural connotation, which is a loss for the identity of the village. The aims of the issue are to pay attention to the reconstruction of other villages affected by similar natural disasters. How and when this should be done is a delicate and complex priority of reconstruction, which should consider the entire social and economic aspect.

This paper, by means of a multidisciplinary approach, deals with changes of the urban and territorial setting in many localities of the epicentral area of the 23 November 1980 Irpinia earthquake. The 23 November 1980 earthquake, known as the "Irpinia-Basilicata earthquake" was the strongest seismic event of the last 80 years in the Southern Apennines of Italy (Mw 6.9, I0=X MCS). It was felt nearly everywhere in Italy, from Sicily in the South, to Emilia Romagna and Liguria in the North. This earthquake was characterized by a complex main rupture, composed of three major sub-events, interpreted as a succession of normal faulting events. Many localities in the Avellino, Salerno and Potenza provinces were nearly completely destroyed (I=IX-X MSK, Postpischl et al., 1985); among them Castelnuovo di Conza, Conza della Campania, Lioni, Santomenna, San Mango sul Calore, San Michele di Serino and Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi. About 800 localities suffered serious damage (Balvano, Bisaccia, Calitri, etc); 75,000 houses collapsed totally and 275,000 were badly damaged. Casualties were 3000, and 10,000 people were wounded. A large amount of information on primary and secondary environmental effects, over all slope movements, was available on the basis of several geological surveys of the area affected by this earthquake. The amount of surface faulting was about 40 km in length and the maximum displacement about 100 cm, while the total area interested by slope movements was estimated in 7400 km2 (Porfido et al., 2002, 2007; Serva et al.2009). In this study we aim to describe trends and specific effects that have taken place in the 35 years following the 1980 earthquake: how the urban and territorial setting have changed, especially in the villages located in the epicentral area; the consequences of the environmental effects on the choices of reconstruction, both in situ, and far from the original historical centre. Therefore, some case histories as San Mango sul Calore and Calitri villages, affected by severe landslide phenomena, and in situ rebuilt, will be examined; whereas Conza della Campania, on the basis of the suffered damages, has been reconstructed far from its original position. In addition, we also illustrate the socio-economic implications that the choices of reconstruction have had, not only for the local communities, but also on the whole Italian country.

In this paper some extreme flooding events occurred in the Campania Region, particularly in the Salerno province since the XVI century, and in the Somma-Vesuvius volcanic complex since the beginning of the XX century, have been analyzed. Through a multidisciplinary approach based on detailed bibliographic and archival documents investigation, besides geologic-geomorphologic analyses, in GIS environment, the landslide distribution and frequency in the last centuries, inside these two areas, has been examined, jointly with the urbanization evolution for the Vesuvius area. In particular, seven flood events, the 1581, 1588, 1773, 1899, 1910, 1924 and the 1954 floods occurred in the Salerno province, have been studied in detail; while the alluvial phenomena occurred in the Somma-Vesuvius district, repeatedly affected by disastrous flood events, and occurred from 1906 to 2011, have been reported. Although this study is not exhaustive, it aims to contribute, illustrating a methodology for data searching and analyzing, to a correct assessment and reduction of hydrogeological risk in the Campania region.