Coastal erosions and rough seas

The contribution of solid silt conveyed by the river to the beach has been reduced over the last few decades, due to undiscriminating extraction of gravel and sand along the beds of many Italian rivers. For this reason, numerous coastlines have visibly retreated and by steadily nearing infrastructures, buildings, industrial sites, are endangering the safety of the latter, at times forcing the population to evacuate the area.

The problem has also been aggravated by rough seas, which by crashing onto the coast, with variable frequency, substantially alter the morphology of the coastline.

Numerous defence works have been built to fight these phenomena, both at right angles to the shoreline (groins), longitudinal (breakwaters) as well others such as seawalls, barriers, etc. More drastic actions have been taken for cases where the coastline has retreated so far as to erode the best part of the beach, for example building up an artificial beach using appropriate filling material extracted from quarries.