Francesca De Serio

Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy - CoNISMa · DICATECh - Dpt of Civil, Environmental, Land, Building Engineering and Chemistry

In heavily urbanised coastal areas, such as port basins, long-term monitoring of key parameters can provide deep insights into local physical and ecological processes, supporting sustainable coastal planning and enhancing environmental management strategies. This study introduces a novel, user-friendly framework for analysing multi-year time series...

An efficient and adaptive strategy within the EU Marine Spatial Planning Directive has to manage the existing and increasing conflicts between human uses and habitat conservation in coastal-marine areas. Among the different human activities developed along the coasts, aquaculture occupies a primary role. In this context, the aims of this research h...

Heavy rainfall/snow events due to climate change can cause strong flooding, damaging existing infrastructure. The potential erosive action of runoff flow produces considerable local scouring at hydraulic structures, compromising their stability. This study is a synthesis of the research on scouring processes conducted by the hydraulic group of the...

Long waves caused by storm surges or river floods can significantly impact marine and fluvial structures such as bridge piers. Apart from the forces that they generate on the structure, they also contribute to the formation of turbulent eddies downstream of the obstacle. This is relevant, as in this way they can affect both an erodible bottom and t...

The present study has the main purpose to experimentally investigate a turbulent momentum jet issued in a basin affected by rotation and in presence of porous obstructions. The experiments were carried out at the Coriolis Platform at LEGI Grenoble (FR). A large and unique set of velocity data was obtained by means of a Particle Image Velocimetry me...

Jet-like flows are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and oceans, and thus a thorough investigation of their behaviour in rotating systems is fundamental. Nevertheless, how they are affected by vegetation or, generally speaking, by obstructions is a crucial aspect which has been poorly investigated up to now. The aim of the present paper is to propose an...

The Coastal Engineering Laboratory (LIC) of DICATECh of the Polytechnic University of Bari (Italy) maintains a place-based research programme in the Mar Grande and Mar Piccolo of Taranto (a coastal system in southern Italy), providing records of hydrodynamic and water-quality measurements. This site is one of the most complex marine ecosystem model...

Most studies on local scouring at grade control structures have principally focused on the analysis of the primary flow field, predicting the equilibrium scour depth. Despite the numerous studies on scouring processes, secondary currents were not often considered. Based on comprehensive measurements of flow velocities in clear water scours downstre...

Unfortunately, more and more contaminants, such as heavy metals and other organic micro-pollutants, degrade the good ecological status of marine systems. The removal of contaminated sediments from harbours through dredging activities may cause harmful changes in the environment. This present work shows how monitoring the activity and validated nume...

The Coastal Engineering Laboratory (LIC) of the DICATECh of the Polytechnic University of Bari (Italy) maintains a place-based research program in the Mar Grande and Mar Piccolo of Taranto (a coastal system in southern Italy), providing records of hydrodynamic and water-quality measurements. This site is one of the most complex marine ecosystem mod...

The present paper, places emphasis on the vorticity induced by wave breaking, which greatly contributes to sediments pick up and suspension as well as to air–water exchange at the wave interface, thus deserving a thorough study. A weakly-compressible smoothed particle (WCSPH) model, coupled with a two-equation model for turbulent stresses, has been...

Experimental turbulence measurements of scour hole downstream of bed sills in alluvial channels with non-cohesive sediments are investigated. Using an Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV), the flow velocity-field within the equilibrium scour hole was comprehensively measured. In this study, we especially focus on the flow hydrodynamic structure in th...

In this study we focus on how understanding, through experimentation using advanced techniques, the dynamic of wave interaction with emergent vegetation. In order to achieve this objective, an experimental study of wave mention through an infinite array of emergent cylinders distributed along a channel bottom was carried out in the Coastal Laborato...

In coastal dynamics, large-scale eddies transport and spread smaller turbulent vortices both towards the sea surface, thus contributing to the processes of air-water gas transfer, and towards the sea bottom, inducing sediment pick-up and resuspension. The mechanical role of the breaking-induced vortices to the redistribution of turbulence and turbu...

Wind, waves, tides, sediment supply, changes in relative sea level and human activities strongly affect shorelines, which constantly move in response to these processes, over a variety of timescales. Thus, the implementation of sound coastal zone management strategies needs reliable information on erosion and/or deposition processes. To suggest a f...

This paper is an extended version of the conference paper: Tognin, D.; Peruzzo, P.; De Serio, F.; Ben Meftah, M.; Carniello, L.; Defina, A.; Mossa, M. Laboratory experiments on solitary wave interaction with rigid emergent vegetation: Some preliminary results, from the 2018 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea, Bari, Abstract: The a...

Rivers and wastewater discharges flowing into lakes and coastal waters strongly affect aquatic ecosystems, based on their transport of turbulence, tracers and sediment particles. Mixing and spreading of outflows have an even greater impact when the receiving site is obstructed by vegetation canopies or mussel cultivation farms. Thus, a thorough kno...

The present work aims at illustrating how the joint use of monitoring data and numerical models can be beneficial in understanding coastal processes. In the first part, we show and discuss an annual dataset provided by a monitoring system installed in a vulnerable coastal basin located in Southern Italy, subjected to human and industrial pressures....

The methodology implemented has demonstrated that the statistical analysis of data remains an accurate method to characterize shoreline changes, even if it disregards potential changes due to engineering activities or major climate change.

This document provides synthetic information for approaching and selecting fluid-structure interaction models for engineering applications, based on the different scenarios to be analysed. The study investigates, identifies and compares tradeoff between benefits and accuracy/efficiency of fluid-structure interaction software packages alternatives.

Awareness of coastal landscapes vulnerability to both natural and man-made hazards induce to monitor their evolution, adaptation, resilience and to develop appropriate defence strategies. The necessity to transform the monitoring results into useful information is the motivation of the present paper. Usually, to this scope, a coastal vulnerability...

Vegetation in channels strongly affects flow structure and turbulence, with consequences on the hydrological storage of nutrients and chemical tracers, the shelter of stream biota as well as the trapping or transport of sediments. At the same time, all these phenomena are inevitably subjected to alteration of hydrological conditions in fluvial syst...

Current monitoring programs in the nearshore region are necessary to allow a thorough knowledge of coastline erosion as well as diffusion and dispersion of polluting tracers. Collecting a large amount of data in widespread areas is challenging, because of technical and economic limitations, thus numerical models are often preferred to simulate the...

KEY POINTS • Wave breaking generates large scale Coherent vortical Structures (CS). • CS strongly control sediment motion and diffusion of tracers, thus deserving a thorough study. • CS induced by a regular plunging wave are analyzed. • Preliminary results provide information on CS location and turbulent length scales.

KEY POINTS • Wave breaking generates large scale Coherent vortical Structures (CS). • CS strongly control sediment motion and diffusion of tracers, thus deserving a thorough study. • CS induced by a regular plunging wave are analyzed. • Preliminary results provide information on CS location and turbulent length scales.

KEY POINTS Turbulence measurement of a dense jet perpendicularly issued into a crossflow. Analysis of the jet-flow velocity was carried out. A new empirical closed-form expression to predict the jet trajectory is proposed. The jet-vortical structures were investigated. Analysis of the jet-flow turbulence and mixing were examined.

Wind, waves, tides, sediment supply, changes in relative sea level and human activities strongly affect shorelines, which constantly move in response to these processes, over a variety of time scales. Thus, the implementation of sound coastal zone management strategies needs reliable information on erosion and/or deposition processes. Suggesting a...

In recent years, an increasing awareness of the importance of the coastal heritage has been raised. Coastal zones represent the interface between land and sea, and are characterized by ecosystems, natural resources, historical urban centres and traditions. During the last decades, both human activities conducted in coastal areas and the occurrence...

Vegetation plays a pivotal role in fluvial and coastal flows, affecting their structure and turbulence, thus having a strong impact on the processes of transport and diffusion of nutrients and sediments, as well as on ecosystems and habitats. In the present experimental study, the attenuation of regular waves propagating in a channel through flexib...

The characteristics of vorticity induced just prior and at the splash-down of a plunging breaker on a 1:10 planar slope have been studied using wave flume experiments and numerical simulations. Laboratory experiments involved detailed measurements in the outer surf zone of both fluid velocities below trough level, achieved by a fibre-optic laser-Do...

The discharge of brackish water, as a dense jet in a natural water body, by the osmotic power plants, undergoes complex mixing processes and has significant environmental impacts. This paper focuses on the mixing processes that develop when a dense round jet outfall perpendicularly enters a shallow flowing current. Extensive experimental measuremen...

Coastal sites with typical lagoon features are extremely vulnerable, often suffering from scarce circulation. Especially in the case of shallow basins subjected to strong anthropization and urban discharges, it is fundamental to monitor their hydrodynamics and water quality. The proper detection of events by high performance sensors and appropriate...

ABSTRACT Aquatic vegetation provides a wide range of ecosystem services. The uptake of nutrients and production of oxygen improve water quality. The widespread planting in waterways could strongly contribute to the removal of nitrogen and phosphorous. Seagrasses form the foundation of many food webs and vegetation promotes biodiversity by creating...

While studies on vegetated channel flows have been developed in many research centers, studies on jets interacting with vegetation are still rare. This study presents and analyzes turbulent jets issued into an obstructed cross-flow, with emergent vegetation simulated with a regular array of cylinders. The paper presents estimates of the turbulence...

The present paper aims to deduce typical physical and hydrodynamic patterns by analyzing and discussing long term and continuous recordings of marine field data. In detail, hourly measurements of wind, waves, current velocity, water temperature, salinity, chlorophyll were assessed by two monitoring stations in the period January 2016-December 2016....

The design of a water treatment plant and its outfall should respect receptors’ environmental quality standards as well as physicochemical parameters of the discharge itself. Moreover, in order to avoid polluting the outfall, because of the natural processes of dilution and self-depuration, coastal outfall pipes are used to issue the depurated wate...

Many coastal monitoring programmes have been carried out to investigate in situ hydrodynamic patterns and correlated physical processes, such as sediment transport or spreading of pollutants. The key point is the necessity to transform this growing amount of data provided by marine sensors into information for users. The present paper aims to outli...

In the present work, the applicability of both field observations and numerical simulations to study the shoreline changes of a low sandy beach was evaluated. This double approach was applied to a study case, i.e. a coastal area located along the Gulf of Manfredonia in Southern Italy. A digital shoreline analysis system (DSAS of ArcGIS©) was adopte...

A thorough understanding of the mixing and diffusion of turbulent jets released in porous obstructions is still lacking in literature. This issue is undoubtedly of interest because it is not strictly limited to vegetated flows, but also includes outflows which come from different sources and which spread among oyster or wind farms, as well as aeria...

Recently, much effort has been spent in the attempt to provide predictions of physical processes at coastal sites. Numerical models are more and more adopted to characterize hydrodynamics and sediment transport features and their use is encouraged because of their feasible applicability, accuracy and cost. In any way, they need for parameters calib...

KEY POINTS In this manuscript we focus on the study of flow structures in a channel partially obstructed by an array of equispaced, vertical, rigid, emergent, circular steel cylinders. Emergent vegetation strongly affects the flow hydrodynamic structures, forming a transversal abrupt velocity transition region at the interface between the obstructe...

KEY POINTS The manuscript focuses on the annual hydrodynamics in semi enclosed basins, by monitoring waves and currents data, by means of Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler and ultrasonic wave meter, as well as winds. In this way it is possible both to check the real-time status of the basins, so to promptly intervene when accidents occur, and to cr...

In the present study, flow patterns in partly vegetated open channels are analyzed. The presence of emergent vegetation strongly affects the flow hydrodynamic structures, forming a transversal abrupt velocity-transition region at the interface between the obstructed and the unobstructed domains. It is observed that the transversal mean flow velocit...

In coastal semi-enclosed basins the knowledge about cleaning capacity of the system, related to the water transport and dilution process, can be crucial to decision makers in order of an aware management. This work aims to investigate the three-dimensional character of these transport time scales in the Taranto Seas (Apulia, Italy), through the app...

The present paper aims to show and discuss the long term and continuous recordings of both meteorological and hydrodynamic data collected in a semi enclosed sea. The site in question is composed by the Mar Grande and Mar Piccolo basins (Southern Italy), which are mutually connected. In turn, the Mar Grande is joined to the Ionian Sea by means of tw...

This paper describes numerical experiments conducted by using the meteorological model CALMET. The aim is to assess how the computational time of the model runs depends on user-defined parameters involved in the iterative procedure used by CALMET to solve the meteorological field. The influence of the weather conditions on the simulation time has b...

In coastal semi-enclosed basins the knowledge about cleaning capacity of the system, related to the water transport and dilution process, can be crucial to decision makers in order of an aware management. This work aims to investigate the three-dimensional character of these transport time scales in the Taranto Seas (Apulia, Italy), through the app...

The present study analyses how a uniform cross-stream affects the behavior of circular, turbulent negatively buoyant jets. The average concentration and velocity fields were investigated along the channel longitudinal central plane and across the jet in two different vertical sections, to understand the jet diffusion and penetration within the ambi...

Hydrodynamic and water quality data has been recorded since February 2014 by a meteo-oceanographic station installed in the inner part of the Gulf of Taranto, in the northeastern part of the Ionian Sea (Southern Italy). This monitoring action, managed by the research unit of the Technical University of Bari, DICATECh Department, could play a pivota...

The coastal areas neighbouring wastewater outfalls are particularly sensitive and vulnerable, therefore they should be continuously monitored. The present paper examines the results of a monitoring survey carried out in July 2001 offshore the Bari town, in the Southern Adriatic Sea (South Italy), close to the outfall of its wastewater treatment pla...