Pocket beaches are small beaches within headlands or structures, with practically zero longshore transport. These beaches often have a high environmental and tourist value, so knowledge of the relative dynamics is very important. The paper describes, through a case study relating to the pocket beach of Scilla, a methodology for analyzing the shoreline changes. Scilla is a town located about 20 km north of Reggio Calabria (Italy). The beach overlooks the Tyrrhenian Sea and extends for about 700 m, with an average width of about 50 m. Also, Scilla is subject to frequent coastal floods, which reach the inhabited center with almost annual frequency. The methodology is divided into two phases, one concerning the analysis of the shoreline changes and the other concerning the analysis of the wave climate. Regarding the first phase, the analysis was carried out on QGIS by tracing some transepts and by implementing a function to calculate the distances between the different shorelines. About the second phase, the data from the last 40 years present in the MeteOcean database have been used to evaluate the wave climate. This phase analyzes the main factors influencing the coastal dynamics in order to identify possible correlation between these factors and the shoreline changes. This paper shows a useful methodology to estimate the evolutionary trends of pocket beaches. This methodology takes into account the solid transport, is easily replicable in other similar contexts and is applicable in the field of planning and management of coastal territories.
The anthropization of many territories observed in the last decades has caused an increase in waterproof surfaces, with alterations of the hydrological cycle. The soil waterproofing reduces hydrological losses by increasing surface runoffs, with the same atmospheric event. Also, the climate changes significantly affect the atmospheric events that generate intense rainfall and sea storms and the major consequences are observed in the case of concomitant events. Generally, in the scientific literature floods and sea storms are studied and analyzed separately. Most of the research mainly focuses on the effects generated on the territory rather than on the analysis of the causes that favor the concurrence of these events. Vulnerable territories such as the Italian and Calabrian ones can be affected by these events. The paper analyzes the conditions that favor the contemporaneity between floods and sea storms, focusing mainly on the geo-morphological and climatic aspects of the Calabrian territory, and in particular of the metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria, which, due to its geomorphological and climatic characteristics, it is subject to concurrent events.
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