Author(s): Andrea Sulis; Giovanni Manca; Oumeima Yezza; Silvia Serreli

Linked Author(s): andrea sulis

Keywords: Beach carrying capacity model; Climate change; Sea state; Wave height trends; Beach management

Abstract: Beaches have become one of the main economic resources in the Mediterranean coastal area and a sustainable long-term planning of this resource should include a proper assessment of the carrying capacity. Previous papers have analysed the potential impact of climate change on the number of users, focusing on the sea level rise (SLR) as the key factor affecting coastal tourism. According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report released on August 9, 2021, climate change in coastal areas (CCC) is bringing multiple different changes in different regions. We can say that CCC is not just sea level rise. This paper aims at providing a wide description and evaluation of how these multiple different changes can affect the amount of visitors without any negative impact on the beach. Specifically, while previous papers have mainly considered the potential impacts of SLR-induced shoreline retreat on the physical-carrying capacity, the paper presents a beach carrying capacity (BCC) model, based on the Cifuentes method, that provides the real-carrying capacity (RCC) as a correction of the PCC by a set {Cf,1,…, Cf,n} of correction factors highly dependent on the environmental of the site. A subset {Cf,1, Cf,2 ,Cf,3} is directly related to the climate, and specifically to wave, wind and rainfall. Significant trends in wind velocity (Italian Air Force Meteorological Service data set) and rainfall intensity (Higher Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research data set) were evaluated based on IPCC scenarios, and trends in wave height were extracted from the Sea State Climate Change Initiative data set of the European Space Agency (ESA) under a research at Department of Architecture, Design and Urbanism at the University of Sassari (Italy). This robust modelling of climate change impacts on RCC is required to define beach management alternatives (MA) based on the available financial resources, infrastructures (hard and soft solutions), services, staff and equipment. The effective carrying capacity (ECC) is therefore the optimum number of visitors that a beach can support considering the RCC and MA. Two MAs (current and short-term horizon over ten years) were evaluated at La Playa beach (South Western of Sardinia, Italy) where the BCC model was applied with the goal to improve the conditions of the beach as a recreational resource and a means of coastal protection while providing amount and quality of facilities for the calculated ECC.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/IAHR-39WC2521711920221876

Year: 2022