Bari – The level of the Mediterranean coasts is rising and the effects on the coasts, even the rocky ones, are beginning to be observed. Two reports, presented in Bari at the National Congress of the Italian Geological Society and of the Italian Society of Mineralogy and Petrology by Marco Anzidei of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and Francesco Faccini, professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Genoa, highlighted the impacts on the Italian coasts of this phenomenon linked to global warming. “The scenarios that are emerging – explained Anzidei – are that the global sea level could rise by about one meter at the end of the century and will continue to rise in the following decades. However, this value could also increase if the ice in Greenland and Antarctica melts faster than we know today. This could expose the coasts to risks that we are trying to evaluate through specific projects. We have numerical data on the expected values of sea level rise, area by area along the Italian coasts. We have selected 39 main coastal areas, in the coastal plains that are very low on the sea and that are the first to be more exposed to sea level rise”.
“The Italian coasts and a large part of the global coasts – added Anzidei – are today exposed to the effects of the increase in sea levels caused by global warming. Global warming means that the sea becomes warmer and increases in volume and therefore rises. Furthermore, a warmer climate means the melting of land ice that flows into the sea, also creating an increase in sea levels.The sum of these effects causes a progressive flooding of the coastsin particular of subsiding coasts, that is, where the soil for natural or anthropic reasons moves downwards. Let’s take the well-known example of Venice. The scenarios that are expected are that the global sea level could rise by about a meter at the end of the century and will continue to rise in the following decades. However, this value could also increase if the ice of Greenland and Antarctica melts faster than we know today. This can expose the coasts to risks that we are trying to evaluate through specific projects. We have numerical data on what are the expected values of sea level rise, area by area along the Italian coasts. We have selected 39 major coastal zonesin the coastal plains that are very low to the sea and are the first to be most exposed to the rise in sea level. In these areas we are carrying out scenarios with maps of marine flooding expected from now until the end of this century. There are 39 areas selected through an analysis of territorial data, data from the Ministry of the Environment that are freely usable. We have analyzed this data and we have identified 39 main areas”.
Even for the rocky ones, the scenario seems worrying. He explained it Francesco Faccini of the University of Genoa. “The issue of the retreat of high rocky coasts is also dramatically presenting itself. It is an issue that perhaps at the moment is not sufficiently addressed in both technical and scientific terms and these rocky coasts are retreating. The job of the cliff is to retreat but the fact is that there are numerous exposed elements – he declared – that are above the cliff or infrastructures, settlements even inside the cliff. Often the base of the cliff is designed for beaches and recreational moments and these situations create exceptional risk conditions that must be monitored, evaluated and strategically addressed through appropriate risk reduction measures. In the cases we have in Liguria, the rate of retreat is variable depending on the nature of the rock, the wave world. In some cases we have recorded retreats of even over 10 meters in 100 years”.
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