Giovanni RANDAZZO, Università di Messina, Italy
Anselme MUZIRAFUTI, Università di Messina, Italy
Stefania LANZA, Università di Messina, Italy
Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, enjoys a strong administrative autonomy and is an important tourist destination (Lanza & Randazzo, 2011).
For years, the contrast to the coastal erosion that afflicts 40% of the beaches along its 1623 km of coastline has consisted in the construction of rigid and passive protections such as seawalls, breakwaters and groynes that sometimes protected the area immediately behind, however, triggering erosive processes in the neighboring areas (Lanza & Randazzo, 2013).
Furthermore, the construction of seafront promenades, in almost all the 123 coastal municipalities, have acted as real killers of the beaches in front and the numerous ports, of different classes and purposes, have negatively affected the downdrift coast for several kilometers.
In 2020, in full lockdown, the Sicilian Region decided to change course, preparing a Regional Plan for the Contrast to Coastal Erosion (PRCEC), based on greater interaction between local administrations (municipalities) and the Central Government (the Sicilian Region; Randazzo & Lanza, 2020). This interaction activity between base and center is taking place on a GIS platform (Geographic Information System; Randazzo et al. 2021) which will allow municipalities to enter local geomorphological and sedimentological information, acquired with the monitoring of the Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Plan of Use of the Public Coastal Area (Demanio Marittimo or Littoral de Demain), while the Region, with a special Control Room, will report this information at the level of the Physiographic Management Unit, introducing the forcing due to the action of waves and currents, thus amalgamating the contrasting activity erosion to a wider territorial context in order to avoid unwanted side effects as much as possible.
To further limit the latter, the use of small local seasonal maintenance interventions or free resilient nourishment will be favored.
Mots clés : Coastal Management|Monitoring|Satellite image|Geodiversity|Sicily
A102921GR