The work package deals with environmental changes resulting from avalanches, rock fall, debris flows, landslides, floods and earthquakes and the effects of these events for the society. The two valleys, SVARF, and HÖRG, have experienced all these various hazards and are in fact among the communities in Iceland that have the highest frequency of snow and debris avalanches. The landscape is sculptured by prehistoric rock slides and debris flows and during historical time many farms have suffered such events and even been demolished in fatal natural hazards of this kind. Rivers have been dammed by the debris and they have changed their course affecting the farmland and pastures. This relates to all the main rivers of the area, Svarfaðardalsá, Skíðadalsá, Hörgá and Öxnadalsá. Snow avalanches have threatened the people of the two valleys, their houses and lifestock all through Iceland’s settlement history. The 2013/2014 Skuggi excavations located ancient landslides that were deposited on top of midden materials and can be dated via the H1104, H1300, and likely H1477 (?) tephras. SVARF is inside an earthquake zone. It is located near to the active transform faults of the so-called Tjörnes fracture zone. The fracture zone is related to the plate boundaries between the Eurasian and N-American crustal plates. There, earthquakes up to the magnitude of 7 are abundant.