Clara Armaroli

University of Bologna | UNIBO

Detailed information on coastal storm impacts is crucial to evaluate the degree of damages caused by floods, implementing effective recovery actions for risk prevention and preparedness, and to design appropriate coastal zone management plans. This article presents a new database containing information on extreme storm events that generated damage...

The definition of the shoreline position from satellite imagery is of great interest among coastal monitoring techniques. Understanding the reality mapped by the resulting shorelines and defining their accuracy is of paramount importance. The assessment described in this paper constitutes a validation of the shorelines obtained by using the novel t...

The aim of this contribution is to provide a brief overview of the current and future earth observation (EO) technologies that can be used to assess and manage the EU coastal flood risk, together with the pertinent international and EU policies and legislation. The review has shown that EOs have become an indispensable technology for the assessment...

This work presents the approach used to estimate coastal flood impact, developed within the EU H2020 European Coastal Flood Awareness System (ECFAS) Project, for assessing flood direct impacts on population, buildings, and roads along the European coasts. The methodology integrates object-based and probabilistic evaluations to provide uncertainty e...

Coastal flooding is recognized as one of the most devastating natural disasters, resulting in significant economic losses. Therefore, hazard assessment is crucial to support preparedness and response to such disasters. Toward this, flood map databases and catalogues are essential for the analysis of flood scenarios, and furthermore they can be inte...

Coastal flooding is recognized as one of the most devastating natural disasters, resulting in significant economic losses. Therefore, hazard assessment is crucial to support preparedness and response to such disasters. Toward this, flood map databases and catalogues are essential for the analysis of flood scenarios, and furthermore can be integrate...

Coastal managers, policymakers, and scientists use shoreline accretion/erosion trends to determine the coastline’s historical evolution and generate models capable of predicting future changes. Different solutions have been developed to obtain shoreline positions from Earth observation data in recent years, the so-called Satellite-Derived Shoreline...

European coasts are regularly exposed to severe storms that trigger extreme water-level conditions, leading to coastal flooding and erosion. Early Warning Systems (EWS) are important tools for the increased preparedness and response against coastal flood events, hence greatly reducing associated risks. With this objective, a proof-of-concept for a...

Coastal storms constitute a key factor controlling shoreline position changes. They may deeply modify the beach morphology and contribute to erosive processes. Earth observation data as the images from the Sentinel satellites of ESA's Copernicus program and the Copernicus Contributing Missions offer potential information for characterizing beach ch...

Nowadays, the employment of high-resolution Digital Surface Models (DSMs) and RGB orthophotos has become fundamental in coastal system studies. This work aims to explore the potentiality of low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) surveys to monitor the geomorphic and vegetation state of coastal sand dunes by means of high-resolution (2-4 cm) RGB ort...

Coastal flood impact assessments are important tools for risk management and are performed by combining the hazard component with the vulnerability of exposed assets, to quantify consequences (or impacts) in terms of relative or absolute (e.g. financial) damage. The process generates uncertainties that should be taken into account for the correct r...

Grottoli, E.; Cilli, S.; Ciavola, P., and Armaroli, C., 2020. Sedimentation at river mouths bounded by coastal structures: A case study along the Emilia-Romagna coastline, Italy. In: Malvárez, G. and Navas, F. (eds.), Global Coastal Issues of 2020. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 95, pp. 505–510. Seville (Spain), ISSN 0749-0208. Beac...

Coastal systems are the result of a natural equilibrium between hydrodynamic, atmospheric, and terrestrial parameters and sediment dynamics. In the Anthropocene, this equilibrium in many coastal regions can be altered by human activities. These activities may globally magnify the effects of extreme meteorological events and sea level rise and direc...

The assessment of coastal vulnerability to natural hazards is a major concern in coastal areas worldwide, particularly in the context of climate change and increased coastal development. In this work an index of physical vulnerability to sea level rise and marine floods was designed and applied over the coast of the Ravenna Province (Italy), a low-...

Managing coastal flood risk at the regional scale requires a prioritization of economic resources along the shoreline. Advanced modeling assessment and open-source tools are now available to support transparent and rigorous risk evaluation and to inform managers and stakeholders in their choices. However, the issues lay in data availability and dat...

The morphological and volumetric changes of the mouth of the small Magra River (catchment size: 1400 km2) in the Western Mediterranean were analyzed from high-resolution bathymetric data collected during several oceanographic surveys from 1882 to 2014, processed following international hydrographic standards (IHO S- 44), and stored in the Italian H...

A two years field campaign of bedload transport measurements was carried out on the Fiumi Uniti R. a few kilometres upstream of its outlet into the Adriatic Sea in order to investigate the role of river sediment supply to a beach that has been experiencing severe degradation throughout the last decades. The threshold condition for bedload entrainme...

This paper illustrates both the potential and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration amongst researchers from the social sciences/humanities and the natural sciences/engineering in formulating disaster risk reduction measures for coastal regions. The authors aim to share their experiences of working across different scientific and engineerin...

The Italian coasts are threatened by coastal flooding and erosion. The Emilia-Romagna region coastline is exposed to marine storms because of its low-lying nature and massive urbanization. Regional managers need comprehensive tools for coastal storm risk assessment. The RISC-KIT Coastal Risk Assessment Framework (CRAF) provides a conceptual framewo...

An historical analysis of the occurrence of storms and their damage intensity is presented. The work analysed historical large-scale events from The Middle Ages to the 1960s at case study sites along the coasts of North Norfolk (UK); Charente-Maritime and Vendée (France); Cinque Terre-Liguria coast (Italy); Emilia-Romagna coast (Italy) and Ria Form...

The impact of coastal storms induces a series of potentially harmful hazards, such as coastal erosion and inundation. Among the different conceptual and methodological approaches to characterize coastal storm-induced vulnerability is an approach developed by the Unites States Geological Survey (USGS) for estimating the relative magnitudes of coasta...

The Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts – Toolkit (RISC-KIT) FP7 EU project (2013-2017) aims to produce a set of innovative and EU-coherent open-source and open- access methods, tools and management approaches (the RISC-KIT) in support of coastal managers, decision-makers and policy makers to reduce risk and increase resilience to low- freq...

An historical analysis of the occurrence of storms and their damage intensity is presented. The work analysed historical large-scale events from The Middle Ages to the 1960s at case study sites along the coasts of North Norfolk (UK); Charente-Maritime and Vendee (France); Cinque Terre-Liguria coast (Italy); Emilia-Romagna coast (Italy) and Ria Form...

The Emilia-Romagna early-warning system (ER-EWS) is a state-of-the-art coastal forecasting system that comprises a series of numerical models (COSMO, ROMS, SWAN and XBeach) to obtain a daily 3-day forecast of coastal storm hazard at eight key sites along the Emilia-Romagna coastline (northern Italy). On the night of 31 October 2012, a major storm e...

This paper aims at presenting and comparing two methodologies adopted by the Emilia-Romagna region, northern Italy, to evaluate coastal vulnerability and to produce hazard and risk maps for coastal floods, in the framework of the EU Floods Directive. The first approach was adopted before the directive had been issued. Three scenarios of damage were...

The erosion issue is a constant threat along most of the littoral areas around the Mediterranean Sea. The Northern Adriatic Sea makes no exception, in particular the Emilia-Romagna region is subject to erosion processes that jeopardize human activities and natural ecosystems along large stretches of the coast. The factors responsible for the erosio...

The extent of coastline urbanization reduces their resilience to flooding, especially in low-lying areas. The study site is the coastline of the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy), historically affected by marine storms and floods. The main aim of this study is to investigate the vulnerability of this coastal area to marine flooding by considering the d...

The extent of coastline urbanization reduces their resilience to flooding, especially in low-lying areas. The study site is the coastline of the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy), historically affected by marine storms and floods. The main aim of this study is to investigate the vulnerability of this coastal area to marine flooding by considering the d...

This paper aims at presenting and comparing two methodologies adopted by the Emilia-Romagna Region, northern Italy, to evaluate coastal vulnerability and to produce hazard and risk maps for coastal floods, in the framework of the EU Floods Directive. The first approach was adopted before the Directive had been issued. Three scenarios of damage were...

A desired outcome in the construction of a detached emerged breakwater is the formation of an accretionary salient in its lee to augment the beach, improve beach amenity and provide an additional buffer from storm waves. The extent to which this salient forms and its morphology are strongly controlled by the breakwater geometry with respect to the...

The Emilia-Romagna Early Warning System (ER-EWS) is a state-of-the-art coastal forecasting system that comprises a series of numerical models (COSMO, ROMS, SWAN and XBeach) to obtain a daily three-day forecast of coastal storm hazard at eight key sites along the Emilia-Romagna coastline (Northern Italy). On the night of the 31 October 2012, a major...

Managed retreat is rarely implemented on exposed sandy coasts because of public interest in beach recreation and the great human-use value of existing beaches and dunes. The feasibility of retreat on the sandy coast of the Adriatic Sea in the Region of Emilia-Romagna was evaluated at a site with a single user facility (a beach concession) backed by...

This chapter provides an overview of the current knowledge of storm impacts on low-lying coastlines, including beaches and dunes. It first outlines the complexity of identifying a storm event in an objective manner. The impact of storms on dune ridges is then discussed, making a comparison between research recently carried out in both the USA and E...

On beaches where natural shoreline variability is significant, beach nourishment is a useful engineering method to augment the dry beach and protect infrastructure and/or unstable cliffs. In this study, a low-cost video monitoring system is used to monitor the shoreline response to a nourishment operation on a dynamic gravel embayed beach in Centra...

The objectives of this study are to examine the response of a dune and beach system on the Adriatic coastline in northern Italy to the arrival of storms, compare it with seasonal (months) and medium-term (3-year) morphodynamic change, and evaluate results predicted by the numerical model XBeach. The studied coastline stretches 4 km from the Bevano...

The objectives of this study are to examine the response of a dune and beach system on the Adriatic coastline in northern Italy to the arrival of storms, compare it with seasonal (months) and medium-term (3-year) morphodynamic change, and evaluate results predicted by the numerical model XBeach. The studied coastline stretches 4 km from the Bevano...

The ability to predict the imminent arrival of coastal storm risks is a valuable tool for civil protection agencies in order to prepare themselves and, if needs be, execute the appropriate hazard-reduction measures. In this study we present a prototype Early Warning System (EWS) for coastal storm risk on the Emilia-Romagna coastline in Northern Ita...

Topics Coastal Systems-Beaches and dunes The morphology and hydrodynamics of two contrasting (protected and natural) microtidal beaches of Lido di Dante, Northern Italy, were synchronously surveyed during medium to low-wave energy conditions in order to assess cross-shore and longshore intertidal bar mobility and to examine the influence of Low Cre...

The definition of storm morphological thresholds along the coast of the Emilia-Romagna Region strictly depends on its configuration and variability. The region is located in northern Italy, facing the Adriatic Sea. The coastline is characterised by very different levels of economic development, ranging from natural zones with dunes to highly develo...

This study discusses the morphological changes of the Bevano "microtidal barrier" and the washover dynamics and evolution in response to several storm surges recorded during one year between September 2008 and September 2009. This barrier corresponds to the old Bevano river spit (characterised by a northward migration) which was abandoned after the...

The current paper discusses the topic of marine storm impact along European coastlines, presenting results from two FP7 Projects currently focusing on this topic, one working on the physical aspects of the problem (MICORE) and the other one on the socio-economic implications (ConHaz).The MICORE Project aims to provide on-line predictions of storm-r...

This paper describes the MICORE approach to quantify for nine field sites the crucial storm related physical hazards (hydrodynamic as well as morphodynamic) in support of early warning efforts and emergency response.As a first step historical storms that had a significant morphological impact on a representative number of sensitive European coastal...

The aim of this paper is to define a simplified morphodynamic classification suitable for low energy beaches exposed to microtidal conditions. The study site is located in the northern Adriatic (in Italy), it is an almost 2km-long rectilinear beach bordered at the northern edge by coastal structures and at the southern end by a small river inlet. T...

The ability to predict coastal hazards several days in advance is a valuable tool for coastal managers to carry out necessary mitigation measures. The MICORE project aims to develop an early warning coastal hazards system at nine distinct sites across Europe using a suite of numerical models from the prediction of forcing parameters to localized hy...

Il presente articolo descrive sei anni di monitoraggio della fascia dunale (2001-2007) tra Lido di Dante e la Foce del torrente Bevano, una delle poche aree naturali della costa dell’Emilia-Romagna. Il monitoraggio ha identificato uno stato di degrado, ormai diventato irreversibile, di circa metà della fascia dunale, che in condizioni “normali” ten...

In this paper we present the first results of beach profile hindcasting with XBeach using recently measured coastal data acquired under storm conditions at eight European sites, including a comparison to model results obtained with off-the-shelf models. The results show consistently that the XBeach has skill in predicting the coastal profile, albei...

The Emilia Romagna coastline is located in northern Italy, facing the Adriatic Sea. It is characterised by natural areas with dunes and urbanised zones. This work only relates with natural areas in order to define storm thresholds able to generate morphological changes on coastal dunes. The main morphological impact is related to the dune system on...

A new FP7 funded project coordinated by the university of Ferrara will soon help to assess the risks and study the economic and social impact of future severe storm events, write Paolo Ciavola and Clara Armaroli

Flood vulnerability assessment due to marine storms is very important for integrated coastal zone management. The case study site is a highly developed area (Rimini) along the Emilia Romagna coastline, facing the north Adriatic sea in Italy. This area is composed of low sandy beaches and is completely protected by emerged breakwaters. Rimini was ch...

To assess coastal storm risks this paper compares existing hazards, associated risks, coastal management plans, and civil protection schemes from nine European countries. An evaluation made of specific study sites concludes that: (a) the definition of coastal hazard or risk varies between countries, regions and sites with no pan-European agreement;...

A methodology to compare in relative terms the coastal vulnerability to storm impacts is presented and applied to three sites in the Mediterranean Sea. The analysis separately evaluates the vulnerability to storm-induced processes (inundation and erosion) and, it quantifies the contribution of the forcing (storm properties) and receptor (beach geom...

The Bevano beach is a small microtidal shore facing the Adriatic Sea located south of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region, northern Italy. This beach corresponds to the old Bevano river spit which was abandoned after the relocation of the river mouth some 500 m to the south of the previous inlet position. The old river mouth was cut off from the...

This paper presents detailed hydrodynamic and morphological data from a field experiment spanning 5 days (10 tidal cycles, starting at Spring Tide conditions) undertaken in Lido di Dante, a microtidal protected beach in the Northern Adriatic Sea. This microtidal beach experienced intense erosion in the recent past and therefore it has been protecte...

The coastal zone of the Emilia-Romagna region is exposed to risk from coastal flooding during storms. The vulnerability of this coastline is a topic of interest for future coastal planning as this area provides large revenue for coastal communities and the whole region. High-resolution airborne laser detection technology (LIDAR) has permitted to un...

Nel presente contesto delle variazioni climatiche e dell'innalzamento del livello marino riveste una particolare importanza la cartografia delle zone costiere per quanto riguarda il rischio da inondazione marina. La Regione Emilia-Romagna ha recentemente completato una cartografia di dettaglio del rischio di inondazione in condizioni di mareggiata...

CIAVOLA P., ARMAROLI C., CHIGGIATO J., VALENTINI A., DESERTI M., PERINI L. and LUCIANI P., 2007. Impact of storms along the coastline of Emilia-Romagna: the morphological signature on the Ravenna coastline (Italy). Journal of Coastal Research, SI 50 (Proceedings of the 9th International Coastal Symposium), 540 - 544. Gold Coast, Australia, ISSN 074...

This contribution evaluates the application of coastal video systems to monitoring and management of coastal stability problems on sandy coastlines. Specifically, video-derived parameters (coastal state indicators or CSIs) are developed which facilitate the measurement of the shoreline evolution (erosion/accretion) and response to storms, seasonal...

The present paper describes the bar system at Lido di Dante (Ravenna, Italy), a 3 Km beach facing the northern Adriatic Sea. The system shows a twofold behavior. A visual classification of the bar plan shape is presented in order to find a relation between the state of the system and the forcing conditions. If the total energy of storms exceeds a c...

Swash bars onshore migration have been measured on intertidal area of two microtidal beaches of Northern Adriatic during very low wave energy conditions. Bed microtopography was performed at every low tides, and migration of features followed by rods in a cross-shore array. Very small swash bars (A<0.07m, 2<L<10 m) were identified all over the inte...