The Italian Coast and its hazards

 

Source


The Italian Coast and its hazards

Italy has over 8,000 km of coastline and is affected by coastal erosion and landslides (source).  About 60% of the population lives in coastal regions (source), so these hazards can have huge economic impacts.  Flooding is also a hazard, but that is mostly a result of a future topic of Climate Change and Sea Level Rise, which heavily impacts Venice (source).  Beach erosion is mostly due to reduced river sedimentation as well as man-made structures like harbors, settlement and associated infrastructure, and the tourism industry (source). 


Here is a map that shows the coastline.

Source




Beach erosion Marina di Massi, 1959 (Source)




What Italy is doing to prevent coastal erosion

Strategies to reduce risk in Italy happen at regional or municipal levels and are coordinated by Regional Civil Protection agencies. At the national level, risk reduction is handled by the Department of Civil Protection. (Source).

Many agencies are involved in risk assessment along Italy’s coast (source).  An important one is the National Committee on Coastal Erosion (TNEC) which was established by the Italian Ministry of the Environment.  There is technical coordination with the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection.  There is also international coordination with the United Nations and the European Union.  Italy is a RISC-KIT country.


Italy is employing both soft and hard engineering techniques.  An example of a soft engineering technique is beach nourishment.  An example of a hard engineering technique is building a seawall. (Source).


Researchers from universities in Bari and Bologna studied coastal risk and have determined that coastal management in Italy is fragmented and not well coordinated.  These researchers are considering novel approaches to coastal risk management (source).  They also suggest a more holistic and proactive approach to management and highlight “risk governance” that includes communication and stakeholder engagement.  This is really important because of climate change, sea level rise, and an increase in sea level rise, and the potential for these hazards to increase.

Comments

  1. MgonzalezMay 4, 2025 at 7:57 PM

    Great post! I hadn't seen anyone post mention "soft engineering techniques" before. I am new to the term beach nourishment, however it is a great method to incorporate to fight erosion while protecting the infrastructure of close by buildings.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Week 2: Tectonic Plates of Italy and Resulting Geological Features

Image
Hi Everyone!  As I mentioned last week, this blog was created for my MPC Geol 9: Earth Catastrophes and Disasters class, and I am blogging about Italy. This week we learned about plate tectonics , which are pieces of the lithosphere that move around due to the plasticity of the mantle layer that is just beneath it.  This plastic layer is called the asthenosphere and it is where the crust begins to melt from the heat in the core.   We also learned about what happens at the boundaries of different plates.  There are three main types of movements, and these vary with the boundary.  For instance, there are oceanic plates that are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that move away from each other.  This type of movement and boundary is called divergent.   Source: https://www.geologyin.com/2024/03/divergent-boundary-definition-features.html Another type of plate movement is when two plates slide past each other.  This type of plate boundary i...
Read more

I Vulcani d’Italia: The Volcanoes of Italy

Image
Italy has nearly 40 volcanoes, and 13 come from the Holocene Epoch, only three of which are considered active ( source ).  These three are Mount Vesuvius, Stromboli, and Mount Etna. All three of these volcanoes are called stratovolcanoes, which are the most dangerous kind.  A Stratovolcano is dangerous because of its potential for an explosive eruption.   A map of the magmatic provinces, including active and quiet volcanoes. Source This map also shows two other active volcanoes: Vulcano and Campi Flegrei.  Their last eruptions were 1890 and 1538, respectively ( source ). Mount Vesuvius is located in the Italian Peninsula Volcanic Provinces and is very famous.  Its eruption in 79 AD killed thousands and buried the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and mud, which remained that way until the 18th Century ( source ). Image credit: https://seepompeii.com/en/mount-vesuvius/ Stromboli is located in the Aeolian Volcanic Arc and is called t...
Read more

The Geological features of Italy by Jeanette Favaloro Spring 2025

Image
 Hello and Welcome to my blog! This blog is about...Italia! Image taken from:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Italia_Bandiera.png This blog is for a class I am taking: Geology 9 at Monterey Peninsula College with Dr. Ana Garcia-Garcia.  This week I would like to introduce Italy, tell you why I chose it, and discuss hazards, disasters, and catastrophes.  As the semester progresses, we will delve into the geology of Italy. Italy is a small country in Southern Europe that shares its northern borders with France, Switzerland,  Austria, and Slovenia.  The remainder of Italy is either a peninsula or an island.  Its eastern border is on the Adriatic Sea, its southern border is on the Ionian Sea, and its western border is on the Tyrrhenian Sea which is a portion of the Mediterranean Sea.  The climate in Italy is quite like our climate in the Monterey Bay area.  The country has an area of 301,340 km^2 and a population size of about 59.2 milli...
Read more