Abstract
In this paper the evolution of the Northern Tuscany littoral cell is documented through a detailed analysis of the increasing anthropogenic pressure since the beginning of the 20th century. This sector of the Tuscany coast has been experiencing strong erosion effects that resulted in the loss of large volumes of sandy beaches. The anthropogenic impact on natural processes have been intensified by the construction of two ports in the early decades of the 20th century. Competent authorities reacted by building hard protection structures that tried to fix the position of the shoreline but offset the erosion drive downdrift. Therefore, in the last 20 years a regional Plan was undertaken to gradually replace the hard defense schemes with a softer approach, which involved a massive use of sediment redistribution activities. Many nourishments have been done ever since, using both sand and gravel. All these hard and soft protection operations have been archived in a geodatabase, and visualized in maps that clearly show the progressive change from hard to soft defense. This database may improve the approach to any future analysis of the littoral cell both in terms of research and management, while providing a practical example that may be easily replicated elsewhere.
Highlights
The increase of greenhouse effect related to human activities is negatively affecting global warming (e.g., [1,2,3,4,5]), and this is becoming a must-win challenge in order to save the future of human beings on the planet
One of the most significant consequences of climate change is the acceleration of sea-level rise rate and the ensuing disastrous effects in terms of erosion and flooding of coastal areas [6,7,8,9,10]
The increase of protection structures is proportional to the evolution of the anthropogenic activities; this is emphasized where the erosion effects hit the most [50]
Summary
The increase of greenhouse effect related to human activities is negatively affecting global warming (e.g., [1,2,3,4,5]), and this is becoming a must-win challenge in order to save the future of human beings on the planet. The IPCC scenarios indicate a sea-level increase of about 50 up to 82 cm for the 80 years depending on the ability of each country to adhere to the Paris agreement to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases [11,12,13] These data represent a major concern for the low-lying sandy coasts, where only a relatively small increase of the sea level may cause extensive inundation [14,15,16,17]. As coastal areas are heavily populated, the huge socio-economic impact deriving from this situation is easy to imagine This is the present-day context that coastal managers are dealing with. Such a multidisciplinary approach has been applied in many coastal monitoring studies e.g., [22,23]
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