Sea hazards are increasingly threatening worldwide coastal areas, which are among the most strategic resources of the Earth in supporting human population, economy and the environment. These hazards enhance erosion processes and flooding events, producing severe socio-economic impacts and posing a challenge to ocean engineers and stakeholders in finding the optimal strategy to protect both the coastal communities and the health of the environment. The impact of coastal hazards is actually worsened not only by an enhancing rate of relative sea level rise and storminess driven by climate changes, but also by increasing urban pressure related to the development of the sea economy. With regard to larger environmental awareness and climate change adaptation needs, the present study focuses on a stepwise approach that supports the actions for coastal protection at Calabaia Beach, which is located in the Marine Experimental Station of Capo Tirone (Cosenza, Italy). These actions first aim to protect humans and coastal assets, then to restore the environment and the local habitat, overcoming the need for the emergency interventions carried out in the last decades and pointing out that healthy ecosystems are more productive and support a sustainable marine economy (“Blue Growth”).

Erosion processes threaten the economy, the environment and the ecosystem of coastal areas. In addition, human action can significantly affect the characteristics of the soil and the landscape of the shoreline. In this context, pursuing environmental sustainability is of paramount importance in solving environmental degradation of coastal areas worldwide, with particular reference to the design of complex engineering structures. Among all the measures conceived to protect the shoreline, environmentally friendly interventions should be supported by the stakeholders and tested by means of mathematical models, in order to evaluate their effectiveness in coastal protection through the evaluation of wave damping and bedload. This study focuses on protected nourishments, as strategic interventions aimed to counteract coastal erosion without affecting the environment. Here, we develop a simplified method to provide a preliminary assessment of the efficiency of submerged breakwaters in reducing wave energy at a relatively low computational cost, if compared to the standard 2D or full 3D mathematical models. The methodology is applied at Calabaia Beach, located in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy), in the area of the Marine Experimental Station of Capo Tirone. The results show that the simplified method is proven to be an essential tool in assisting researchers and institutions to address the effects of submerged breakwaters on nourishment protection.

Nearshore marine systems provide multiple economic and ecological services to human communities. Several studies addressing the climate change stressors and the inappropriate use of the sea indicate a decline of coastal areas. An extensive monitoring of the most important marine sites and protected areas is crucial to design effective environmental-friendly measures to support the sustainable development of coastal regions. A 70-year-long wave climate analysis is presented to study the climatology of the area belonging to the Marine Experimental Station of Capo Tirone, Italy. The analysis is based on the global atmospheric reanalysis developed by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, validated through an observed buoy dataset recorded by the Italian Sea Wave Measurement Network. No significant long-term trends have been detected. The need to set up new monitoring stations has been pointed out by means of a hydrodynamic model developed at the regional scale, evaluating the effect of the local morphology on the nearshore wave climate and highlighting the importance of surveying the marine protected area of Capo Tirone located therein.

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Abstract. Climate change will have an undeniable influence on coastal areas. In the last decades, the impact of storm surges has promoted multiple mitigation and adaptation strategies worldwide, including more robust sea defenses, development of integrated modelling chains and warning systems, and improved storm impact management. However, as climate change seems likely to result in increased rates of both sea level rise and storm-related impacts, it is crucial to estimate the local probable extreme sea wave conditions, to properly reproduce the wave and hydrodynamic inshore field, and to investigate the effectiveness of sea defenses under different sea level rise scenarios. This work describes the first steps towards an innovative fully coupled modelling system composed of a hydrodynamic (2DEF) and wind wave model (SWAN). The models are two-way coupled at half-hourly intervals exchanging the following fields: 2D sea level, surface currents and bottom elevation are transferred from 2DEF to SWAN; wave climate computed by SWAN is then passed to 2DEF by modifying the radiation stress. Numerical simulations have been performed to identify the impact of extreme storms at Calabaia beach, Italy, by combining sea level rise and extreme wave projections with the most recent georeferenced territorial data.