Interaction between catchment basin management and coastal evolution (southern Italy)

The research highlights the consequence of an imbalance between "basin management scale" and "coastal management areas" and investigates the relationship between coastline erosion and natural evolution of the inland system at the short-medium timescale while taking account of local climatic changes and sea level rise. The study was undertaken in the Bradano and Basento catchment basins, on the Ionian coast of Basilicata Region (Southern Italy) through an institutional agreement between ENEA (the National Agency for New Technologies) and the Italian Ministry of Environment. In this area previous studies highlighted an important erosional coastline trend that began about 1950. No previous study has considered the role of the coastal river catchment area in this erosion. With this aim, contemporary data for coastal and inland evolution were gathered and compared, implementing existing knowledge with land use analysis in the Bradano and Basento basins using multitemporal Landsat TM Images. For the coastal zone, the analysis was carried out at a more detailed scale using different cartographic sources mainly at 1:10.000 scale spanning the past 45 years. The hydrographic network data was analysed to consider fluvial solid transport, dams, locks, and historical precipitation data series. The land use changes analysis has focused on inland features related to the desertification process, rainfall intensity and climatic changes. These features have been analysed mainly in relation to their contribution to soil erosion and subsequent sediment supply availability. Analysis of the coastline focused on changes in beaches, dunes and backshore areas.