In terms of human settlement mountainous regions represent a challenging environment. Nonetheless the Alps have been home to intense and widespread human activity for a very long time. As part of this highly dynamic system human societies faced abundant natural hazards and were also detrimental in bringing about substantial environmental change. The proposed multidisciplinary project aims to investigate the interrelation between environmental change, with a special focus on geologic and climatic extreme events, and human land use dynamics in the Eastern Alps during the late Holocene. By studying the co-evolving human-environment system over a long time period and in high resolution within a multi-proxy approach we hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of present conditions and help to inform decisions for the future. In practice we intend to trace the development of human-environment relations in the UNESCO World Heritage region Hallstatt-Dachstein from the beginnings of underground salt mining in the Hallstatt High Valley in 15th cent. BC until today. Our principal research objective is to investigate how certain types of extreme events (mass movements, extreme precipitation events) influenced the socioecological systems of the research area. Within this context special attention will be paid to (i) environmental stress caused through mass movements and extreme precipitation events, (ii) environmental stress caused through human impact, (iii) conditions influencing system stability, and (iv) societal response to environmental crisis. The discussion will be based on an integrated and highly resolved long term record of human-environment relations in the Hallstatt-Dachstein region. For this purpose the project will (a) establish an inventory of extreme events, (b) enhance the palaeoenvironmental data record of the research area, and (c) investigate human land use dynamics with special attention to change. The department of Geophysics is part of the multidisciplinary research group. With the help of geoelectrical measurements and a geological drilling it is the goal to estimate the volume of the prehistoric mass movement.