Figure 1

(a) Map of the test site in the S. Felice salt marsh, Venice Lagoon, N-E Italy (from Google Earth, modified with Iwork 5.3 suite https://www.apple.com/iwork/). The panel on the middle shows the vegetation map of the San Felice Marsh (from Marani et al. 2006⁵³ -free of use under the Creative Commons Attribution license- modified, https://www.plos.org/license, modified with Iwork 5.3 suite https://www.apple.com/iwork/). The panel on the right shows a LiDar image of the study site with color-coded topographic elevations (from Boaga et al.³⁰ - free of use under the Creative Commons Attribution license- modified, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291944–8007/homepage/FundedAccess.html, modified with Iwork 5.3 suite -https://www.apple.com/iwork/-). The black box shows the abandoned meander area, investigated in this study. As it can be seen in right panel the abandoned meander inner part presents a slight topographic height. This relative height in is confirmed by the vegetation map, which presents Sarcocornia vegetation, respect to the Limonium vegetation that usually characterize lower lands. (b) Historical aerial images (from the 1938 and 1968 flights, respectively (provided by the Magistrato alle Acque — Consorzio Venezia Nuova -Venice). Originals are freely available only at http://mapserver.iuav.it/website/foto_aeree/, while a brief description of sources and images are given at http://www.iuav.it/SISTEMA-DE/Laboratori1/patrimonio/aerofotogr/index.htm. Current satellite image of the S. Felice salt marsh (from Google Earth). The red dots A –E show the locations of two test boreholes.