Abstract
The coastal area at Riccione, in the southern Emilia-Romagna littoral region, is exposed to erosive processes, which are expected to be enhanced by climate change. The beach, mostly composed of fine sand, is maintained through various defense strategies, including frequent nourishment interventions for balancing the sediment deficit and other experimental solutions for reducing coastal erosion. Artificial reshaping of the beach and “common practices” in the sediment management redefine the beach morphology and the sediment redistribution almost continuously. These activities overlap each other and with the coastal dynamics, and this makes it very difficult to evaluate their effectiveness, as well as the role of natural processes on the beach morphological evolution. Topo-bathymetric and sedimentological monitoring of the beach has been carried out on a regular basis since 2000 by the Regional Agency for Prevention, Environment and Energy of Emilia-Romagna (Arpae). Further monitoring of the emerged and submerged beach has been carried out in 2019–2021 in the framework of the research project STIMARE, focusing on innovative strategies for coastal monitoring in relation with erosion risk. The aim of this study is to assess the coastal behavior at the interannual/seasonal scale in the southern coastal stretch of Riccione, where the adopted coastal defense strategies and management actions mostly control the morphological variations in the emerged and submerged beach besides the wave and current regime. The topo-bathymetric variations and erosion/accretion patterns provided by multitemporal monitoring have been related to natural processes and to anthropogenic activities. The morphological variations have been also assessed in volumetric terms in the different subzones of the beach, with the aim of better understanding the onshore/offshore sediment exchange in relation with nourishments and in the presence of protection structures. The effectiveness of the adopted interventions to combat erosion, and to cope with future climate change-related impacts, appears not fully successful in the presence of an overall sediment deficit at the coast. This demonstrates the need for repeated monitoring of the emerged and submerged beach in such a critical setting.
Highlights
Coastal dynamics in the Emilia-Romagna region are widely controlled by anthropogenic factors
In this study, based on repeated surveys carried out in similar operative conditions in the emerged and submerged beach from November 2017 to February 2021, we describe the morphological evolution of the beach from a short-term to long-term
Height values higher than 3 m are observed in the December 2019 and February 2021 surveys in the innermost sector of the beach (Figure 6d,e) corresponding to the artificial embankment built in winter for preventing flooding of the backshore during storms
Summary
Coastal dynamics in the Emilia-Romagna region are widely controlled by anthropogenic factors. The use of the coast for tourism markedly grew in the second half of the XX century, becoming one of the most important economic activities of the region. A large part of the coast does not exceed 2 m above sea level and part of the hinterland is currently below sea level. This may enhance the impacts of climate change, such as erosion and flooding due to extreme meteorological events and sea-level rise [2,3,4]
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