Coastal morphodynamics and environmental assessment of the Special Protection Site of Palude di Torre Flavia (Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy)

Environmental evolution and morphodynamics reconstruction were conducted by means of a multidisciplinary studies (geomorphological, microfaunistic, geochemical, stratigraphic) on the Special Protection Site of Palude di Torre Flavia (Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy) to provide a background for future monitoring actions to safeguard and manage of this site and to display a multidisciplinary approach applicable to similar sites in the world. This site has a high naturalistic value, because it includes a wetland area today threatened by coastal erosion due to both anthropogenic impact and climate change. In the past, the wetland should be wider than the current one status and, during the time, it was susceptible to an ongoing reduction due to a prevailing erosive trend. This erosive character resulted in reduced backshore width and the steepening of the shoreface. Two seasonal beach profiles, carried out in March and September of 2017, show reversed profile features, confirmed also by microfaunal and sedimentological data. This anomalous climate regime occurring during 2017 belongs to a series of climate irregularities occurring in the last years along the Italian peninsula that testifies an ongoing climate change at a global scale. On the contrary, the wetland shows minor seasonal changes probably due to the addition of adequate volumes of freshwater for the Palude di Torre Flavia’s management. Although the chemical analysis showed no significant anthropogenic pollution the presence of eutrophic foraminiferal assemblages, in the northern sector of the studied area, could be indicative of periodically anthropogenic water eutrophication caused by the summer tourism.