Renata Archetti

University of Bologna | UNIBO · Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering DICAM

Coastal areas frequently face critical conditions due to the lack of adequate forms of land use planning, environmental management and inappropriate coastal risk management, sometimes leading to unexpected and un-desired environmental effects. Risk management also involves cultural aspects, including perception. However, the acknowledgement of risk...

Sandy beaches and the nearshore environment are dynamic coastal systems characterized by sediment mobilization driven by alternating stormy and mild wave conditions. However, this natural behavior of beaches can be altered by coastal defense structures. Repeated surveys carried out with autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) may represent an interestin...

Coastal monitoring is strategic for the correct assessment of nearshore morphodynamics, to verify the effects of anthropogenic interventions for the purpose of coastal protection and for the rapid assessment of flooding vulnerability due to severe events. Remote sensing and field surveys are among the main approaches that have been developed to mee...

The coastal area at Riccione, in the southern Emilia-Romagna littoral region, is exposed to erosive processes, which are expected to be enhanced by climate change. The beach, mostly composed of fine sand, is maintained through various defense strategies, including frequent nourishment interventions for balancing the sediment deficit and other exper...

The Italian coastline stretches over about 8350 km, with 3600 km of beaches, representing a significant resource for the country. Natural processes and anthropic interventions keep threatening its morphology, moulding its shape and triggering soil erosion phenomena. Thus, many scholars have been focusing their work on investigating and monitoring s...

In fluid mechanics, fountains take place when a source fluid is driven by its own momentum into a surrounding ambient fluid and it is counterbalanced by buoyancy. These phenomena are largely encountered in nature and human activities. Despite the numerous studies on the subject, few experimental data are available about the internal structure of tu...

The need to remove deposited material from water basins is common and has been shared by many ports and channels since the earliest settlements along coasts and rivers. Dredging, the most widely used method to remove sediment deposits, is a reliable and wide-spread technology. Nevertheless, dredging is only able to restore the desired water depth b...

The use of video-monitoring techniques is significantly increased due to the diffusion of high-resolution cameras at relatively low-costs and they are largely used to estimate the shoreline evolution and wave run-up, as important coastal state indicators to be monitored and predicted for the assessment of flooding and erosion risks. In this work, w...

This work presents the MoonWEC, a new device for wave energy conversion. This new concept encompasses several working principles as the heaving point absorber, the oscillating water column and the overtopping. The development of the new WEC has been carried out through numerical modelling. Three main parts of the device have been simulated: a hollo...

In order to obtain a fair and reliable description of the wave amplitude and currents in harbors due to the tsunami generated by the 21 May 2003 Boumerdès earthquake (Algeria), a numerical investigation has been performed with a standard hydraulic numerical model combined with various source fault models. Seven different rupture models proposed in...

Marine coastal ecosystems are facing structural and functional changes due to the increasing human footprint worldwide, and the assessment of their long-term changes becomes particularly challenging. Measures of change can be done by comparing the observed ecosystem status to a purposely defined reference condition. In this paper, a geospatial mode...

To mitigate coastal erosion and harbors siltation, new strategies are required in the immediate term. In fact, even if many traditional solutions are available, their application is usually limited due to economic, environmental and social reasons. This situation is particularly evident in the case of small marinas or in those areas where the local...

A three degrees-of-freedom model based on the potential flow theory was implemented to represent the motion of a slender cylindrical buoy under waves. The model calibration was performed by means of the comparison between the model results and the experiments performed at the Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering of the University of Bologna (Italy)....

The paper proposes a simplified methodology to track the evolution of vegetation patterns over a central sandbar of the Po River, Italy, by means of a fixed video camera installed on the top of a bridge pier. Looking downstream, the camera acquires images every twelve hours while hourly water levels are derived from a radar hydrometer located 300 m...

Coupled wave – 3D-hydrodynamics model runs are performed to investigate thermal discharge release to coastal areas by means of including nearshore effects of wave-current dynamics. The study area comprises the vicinity of a power plant at Cerano, in South Italy, where cooling industrial waters are released to the sea. The implemented model is calib...

To mitigate coastal erosion and harbors siltation several selective strategies are currently available. Among the traditional solutions, an innovative device, i.e. the “ejector”, characterized by low operative costs, no environmental impact and able to simultaneously counteract both phenomena, was designed and experimentally tested in laboratory an...

Although the importance, sediment siltation represents a very critical barrier for the operability of the harbor of Rodi Garganico (Italy). Due to negative economic impact, in fact, traditional dredging results an unviable solution. For this purpose, an innovative solution, called the “ejector”, is proposed for the specific case. Based on several p...

In recent years, the use of video-monitoring techniques for the evaluation of coastal erosion in maritime areas is significantly increased, due to the diffusion of high-resolution cameras at relatively-low cost (Archetti et al., 2016). The capability of performing several analyses makes video monitoring suitable for applications in coastal research...

The paper proposes a simplified methodology to track the evolution of vegetation patterns over a central sandbar of the Po River, Italy, by means of a fixed video camera installed on the top of a bridge pier. Looking downstream, the camera ac-quires images every twelve hours while hourly water levels are derived from a ra-dar hydrometer located 300...

The evolution of coastal and transitional environments depends upon the interplay of human activities and natural drivers, two factors that are strongly connected and many times conflicting. The urge for efficient tools for characterising and predicting the behaviour of such systems is nowadays particularly pressing, especially under the effects of...

Marine coastal ecosystems are facing structural and functional changes due to the increasing human footprint worldwide, and the assessment of their long-term changes becomes particularly challenging. Measures of change can be done by comparing the observed ecosystem status to a purposely defined reference condition. In this paper, a geospatial mode...

This work presents the results of the numerical study implemented for the natural area of Lido di Spina, a touristic site along the Italian coast of the North Adriatic Sea, close to the mouth of River Reno. High-resolution simulations of nearshore dynamics are carried out under climate change conditions estimated for the site. The adopted modeling...

The present work regards the numerical study on propagation of thermal discharge in the coastal area of Cerano, Brindisi, where the power plant of 2640 MW can be considered as an emblematic case study as far as pollution is concerned. The availability of field CTD data, collected in 2002 by ARPA Puglia, allows validating a 3D numerical model focusi...

This work presents the approach strategy for the optimization of the coastal defence at a specific site in the Northern Adriatic Sea, the Reno river mouth (Italy). The area is extremely dynamic and vulnerable since exposed to several climate change related effects and in the last decades has suffered strong erosion processes. A rocky revetment cove...

The effects of inter-annual waves on the beach at Jesolo, Italy, are analysed by means of MIKE Shoreline Morphology Model by DHI, that combines 2D modelling with 1D shoreline evolution, and in-situ observations from video camera installation and ADCP are used to calibrate the performed simulations .

In this paper, the performance of different wave generation and absorption methods in computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based numerical wave tanks (NWTs) is analyzed. The open-source CFD code REEF3D is used, which solves the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations to simulate two-phase flow problems. The water surface is computed with the...

Studies on coastal boulders transported inland by high‐energy events, as tsunamis, focus mainly on the nature, magnitude and characteristics of past events and contribute to coastal hazard assessments. However, uncertainties on the transport models used in the literature are widely acknowledged. To study the minimum flow conditions for boulders tra...

A simple methodology to track the displacements of a sandbar from a fixed video camera, extracting its morphological features and deriving the associated fluvial morphology is presented, using a small reach of the Po River in Italy as a case study. A camera fixed on a bridge pier acquired images every twelve hours while hourly water levels are deri...

Sea level records, collected in digital form with high sampling rate by recently upgraded tide gauges located along the Mediterranean coasts, are subjected to a posteriori investigation to examine and characterize occurrence of sea level oscillations in the tsunami period range, induced by both underwater or coastal earthquakes and by meteorologica...

This paper presents a numerical model that simulates the behaviour of an offshore point absorber wave energy converter (WEC). The model receives 1st order irregular waves as input and delivers instantaneous displacements, velocities and power as output. The model outputs are strongly non-linear due to the nature of some parts of the device, such as...

Sea states and environmental conditions are basic data for the design of marine structures. Hindcasted wave data have been applied here with the aim of identifying the proper design conditions for an innovative quay wall concept. In this paper, the results of a computational fluid dynamics model are used to optimise the new absorbing quay wall of V...

The work focuses on hydrodynamic interactions between heaving wave energy converters (WEC). Wave parks of four devices are simulated in the time domain by a hydrodynamic-electromagnetic model, coupled with a boundary element code for the estimation of hydrodynamic parameters. Different layouts (linear, square and rhombus), WEC separation distances...

The research presented in the paper moves from the results of a feasibility study recently carried out for the development of an offshore wind farm off the cost of Rimini, in the Northern Adriatic Sea. The work, based on in-situ measurements of the environmental conditions, assessed the suitability of the considered area for the development of a re...

No other environmental variable of such ecological importance to estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems around the world has changed so drastically, in such a short period of time, as dissolved oxygen in coastal waters. The prevalent methods for counteracting anoxic sea events are indirect measures which aim to cut-down anthropic loads introduced...

The most common methods of counteracting hypoxic events at the bottom sea layers are indirect measures aimed to reduce organic load introduced in the environment. No direct approach has been investigated except the WEBAP and OXYFLUX devices. The estimation of the surface water pumped from such devices is still largely based on physical or empirical...

The present work describes an operational strategy for the development of a multiscale modeling system, based on a multiple-nesting approach and open-source numerical models. The strategy was applied and validated for the Gulf of Taranto in southern Italy, scaling large-scale oceanographic model results to high-resolution coupled wave–3-D hydrodyna...

Numerical modelling has become an essential component of today's coastal planning, decision support and risk assessment. High-resolution modelling offers an extensive range of capabilities regarding simulated conditions, works and practices and provides with a wide array of data regarding nearshore wave dynamics and hydrodynamics. In the present wo...

The sea state and environmental sea conditions are basic data for the design of marine structures. Hindcasted wave data have been here applied for the definition of proper environmental conditions at sea, with the aim to estimate the design condition of an innovative quay wall concept, for a more efficient dock design. In this paper the results of...

The paper presents an application of shoreline monitoring aimed at understanding the response of a beach to single storms and at identifying its typical behaviour, in order to be able to predict shoreline changes and to properly plan the defence of the shore zone. On the study area, in Jesolo beach (northern Adriatic Sea, Italy), a video monitoring...

The present work describes an operational strategy for the development of a multiscale modelling system, based on a multiple–nesting approach and open–source numerical models. The strategy was applied and validated for the Gulf of Taranto in South Italy, scaling large–scale oceanographic model results to high–resolution coupled wave – 3D hydrodynam...

Numerical modelling has become an essential component of today's coastal planning, decision support and risk assessment. High resolution modelling offers an extensive range of capabilities regarding simulated conditions, works and practices, and provides with a wide array of data regarding nearshore wave- and hydro-dynamics. In the present work, th...

The paper presents an application of shoreline monitoring aimed to understand the response of a beach to single storms and to identify its typical behaviour, in order to be able to predict shoreline changes and to properly plan the defence of the shore zone. On the study area, in Jesolo beach (Nothern Adriatic sea, Italy), a video monitoring statio...

In the present work, an advanced tsunami generation, propagation and coastal inundation 2-DH model (i.e. 2-D Horizontal model) based on the higher-order Boussinesq equations – developed by the authors – is applied to simulate representative earthquake-induced tsunami scenarios in the Eastern Mediterranean. Two areas of interest were selected after...

Coastal areas for anthropic zones are vital economic hubs for tourism, fisheries and recreational activities. These are just some of the businesses which develop and grow many parts of the world. In terms of water quality, the growth of economy, along with the acceleration of climate change makes it necessary for sustainable coastal defense plans....

The present work investigates thermal discharge to coastal areas using TELEMAC-3D to simulate nearshore hydrodynamics, both standalone and coupled with TOMAWAC in order to include the effect of wave-current interactions as well. The study area is located in South Italy and comprises the vicinity of power plant at Cerano, near the city of Brindisi....

Extreme met-ocean conditions cause proportioned wave run-up and load on sand dunes which potentially trigger the formation of a fast growing dune breach leading to coastal flooding. The objective of this study is to investigate deterministically how and to what extent waves trigger and drive breaching of sand dunes. The selected study area is Emili...

In the present work, an advanced tsunami generation, propagation and coastal inundation 2-DH model (i.e. 2-D Horizontal model) based on the higher-order Boussinesq equations – developed by the authors – is applied to simulate representative earthquake-induced tsunami scenarios in the Eastern Mediterranean. Two areas of interest were selected after...

Oil–shoreline interaction (or “beaching” as commonly referred to in literature) is an issue of major concern in oil spill modeling, due to the significant environmental, social and economic importance of coastal areas. The present work studies the improvement of the representation of beaching brought by the introduction of the Oil Holding Capacity...

In the present paper, the feasibility of wave electricity production in Italian seas is investigated through the implementation of a variant of the Seabased point absorber WEC. A numerical model of the coupled buoy-generator system is presented, which simulates the behavior of the WEC under different significant wave heights and periods. The WEC sc...

This study theoretically and experimentally explores the behaviour of axisymmetric gravity currents of Newtonian and power-law fluids in inhomogeneous porous media. Systematic heterogeneity along the vertical is represented by a power-law permeability variation governed by the parameter \omega, mimicking trends in natural media. A self-similar solu...

This paper aims to investigate the possibility and limits of using the laser device LISST-SL to calibrate and validate the multi-frequency acoustic method for assessing the concentration and grain size of suspended sand in rivers by using Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs). Over the last few decades, the methods for investigating suspended...

In this paper the feasibility of wave energy exploitation off the Italian coasts is investigated. At this aim, the energy production and the performance characteristics of three of the most promising and documented wave energy converters (AquaBuOY, Pelamis and Wave Dragon) are estimated for two of the most energetic Italian locations. The sites are...

Oil-shoreline interaction (or "beaching" as commonly referred in literature) is an issue of major concern in oil-spill modeling, due to the significant environmental, social and economic importance of coastal areas. The amount of oil that reaches and stays at the shore, as well as the temporal characteristics of the involved processes –in short– de...

In this paper we use MEDSLIK-II, a Lagrangian marine surface oil spill model described in Part 1 (De Dominicis et al., 2013), to simulate oil slick transport and transformation processes for realistic oceanic cases, where satellite or drifting buoys data are available for verification. The model is coupled with operational oceanographic currents, a...

Wave and hydrodynamics modelling in coastal areas is nowadays an indispensable tool for both research and engineering/environmental design. The selection among the various available models is equally essential and should be done cautiously, taking into consideration both the models' capabilities and the actual modelling needs. In the above context,...