An Integrated Sea-Land Approach for Mapping Geomorphological And
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Journal of Maps ISSN: (Print) 1744-5647 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjom20 An integrated sea-land approach for mapping geomorphological and sedimentological features in an urban microtidal wave-dominated beach: a case study from S Sardinia, western Mediterranean Sandro De Muro, Angelo Ibba, Simone Simeone, Carla Buosi & Walter Brambilla To cite this article: Sandro De Muro, Angelo Ibba, Simone Simeone, Carla Buosi & Walter Brambilla (2017) An integrated sea-land approach for mapping geomorphological and sedimentological features in an urban microtidal wave-dominated beach: a case study from S Sardinia, western Mediterranean, Journal of Maps, 13:2, 822-835, DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2017.1389309 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2017.1389309 © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa View supplementary material UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of Journal of Maps Published online: 25 Oct 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 94 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tjom20 Download by: [2.46.144.191] Date: 16 November 2017, At: 08:54 JOURNAL OF MAPS, 2017 VOL. 13, NO. 2, 822–835 https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2017.1389309 SCIENCE An integrated sea-land approach for mapping geomorphological and sedimentological features in an urban microtidal wave-dominated beach: a case study from S Sardinia, western Mediterranean Sandro De Muroa, Angelo Ibbaa, Simone Simeoneb, Carla Buosia and Walter Brambillaa aDepartment of Chemical and Geological Sciences, Coastal and Marine Geomorphology Group (CMGG), Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy; bIstituto per l’Ambiente Marino Costiero, C.N.R., Torregrande, Oristano, Italy ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY An integrated cartographic approach has been used to summarize different data Received 13 March 2017 (geomorphological, sedimentological, hydrodynamic, ecological and anthropic) from an Revised 25 September 2017 urban microtidal, wave-dominated beach and adjacent inner shelf in a comprehensive and Accepted 4 October 2017 easily readable mapping output. The study area is located in S Sardinia (Italy, Mediterranean KEYWORDS Sea) and focuses on Poetto beach. All the data in this study were processed to produce a Geomorphology; Main Map (1:6400 scale) showing the key characteristics of the entire area and three detailed sedimentology; Posidonia secondary maps (1:56,000 and 1:59,000 scale) that include topographic and eco-graphic oceanica meadow; beach profiles, the distribution of sedimentary facies and the main anthropic impact. This map, management; Mediterranean providing detailed information on the beach dynamics, human impact and the marine sea; Poetto beach ecological status of the Poetto urban beach, represents a useful new tool to facilitate environmental conservation and beach management. 1. Introduction meadow) and climate forcing can be crucial for coastal Urban beaches are dynamic sedimentary environ- managers to provide benefits for beach management, ments, highly impacted by human activities. They pro- risk prevention and coastal planning (De Muro & De vide important functions for human recreation, Falco, 2015). When combined these data in a unique economy of coastal cities and support the protection cartographic product, they can be easily used by of coastal development from storms and flooding, act- decision-makers to assess territorial and marine fea- ing as a barrier in respect to physical forcing (Jimenez, tures and locate vulnerable areas in need of conserva- Euan Avila, Villatoro Lacouture, & Silva Casarin, tion and protection. Recently, significant efforts were 2016). However, coastal management practices often made to synthesize the outputs of research studies in alter urban beach morphology and dynamics using a useful format for coastal managers (De Muro, Bat- inappropriate procedures for routine maintenance zella, De Falco, & Porta, 2010; De Muro, Ibba, & (Nordstroom, Jackson, Freestone, Koroty, & Puleo, Kalb, 2016; Rovere et al., 2015; Stojanovic & Ballinger, 2012; Simeone & De Falco, 2012, 2013). For example, Downloaded by [2.46.144.191] at 08:54 16 November 2017 2009). From this effort, several maps were realized by the removal of seagrass banquette through mechanical the scientific community to identify coastal hazards cleaning impacts the backshore section of the beach and/or coastal vulnerability (De Muro, Batzella, Kalb, system (Buosi et al., 2017; De Falco, Simeone, & Baroli, & Pusceddu, 2008; De Muro, Pusceddu, & Kalb, 2008), and the trucks, transiting on the beach to allow 2010; Mendoza & Jimenez, 2008; Olita et al., 2012; its removal, flatten the berms and reduce sand per- Rovere et al., 2013). However, only a limited number meability, with subsequent coastal erosion (De Muro of maps have the capacity to integrate coastal geomor- & De Falco, 2015). phology information (onshore and offshore), geologi- Understanding of the interactions between beach cal background, sediment data, benthic habitat dynamics (sediment origin and transport pathways, mapping, hydrodynamic modeling (longshore and rip classification and distribution of morpho-sedimentolo- currents) and human impact as shown in Buosi et al. gical features, identification of sediment facies in (2017). The Main Map presented herein is the first relation to wind, waves and hydrodynamic-induced map summarizing anthropogenic impact (e.g. nourish- processes, etc.), human impact (e.g. nourishment ment activities, grooves due to pedestrian and vehicle works, fragmentation of dune habitats) and infrastruc- impact) on a beach system as well as geomorphological, ture, marine biota (distribution of Posidonia oceanica ecological quality status of seabed, hydrodynamic and CONTACT Sandro De Muro [email protected] Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, Coastal and Marine Geomorphology Group (CMGG), Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Via Trentino 51, I-09127 Cagliari, Italy © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of Journal of Maps This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. JOURNAL OF MAPS 823 sedimentological data. Therefore, the aim of this paper pedestrian/cycling road along the shoreline. Embryo is to synthesize, using a digital map, the results of sev- dunes are highly impacted by pedestrian transit for eral studies conducted in an urban Mediterranean beach access that causes cross-shore fragmentation. beach, located in the south of Sardinia (Figure 1). Additionally, the seaward side of these dunes is eroded More specific goals are: (i) to identify the main on a daily basis due to beach cleaning and bulldozing. human impacts and pressures; (ii) to assess the Damage to infrastructure located closer to the relationship between coastal processes and sediment shoreline and caused by storms was recorded on the input from nourishment activities; (iii) to evaluate western side of Poetto beach. For this reason, a nour- the environmental status and (iv) to describe the over- ishment project was carried out in 2002 on the western all beach system from backbeach to inner shelf. side of the study area, using mainly bioclastic/biogenic Furthermore, the map provides a multidisciplinary sediments. The nourishment has significantly modified baseline product to support the future assessment of the textural, compositional and morphological features anthropogenic impacts and monitoring of environ- of the backshore, shoreline and shoreface, which were mental changes related to sea level rise and increased originally composed of medium-fine siliciclastic sand. extreme events linked to global warming. Increasing residential users and tourists, urbanization This work is part of a more extended study aiming and sediment nourishment are the main human inter- to provide a large cartographic archive of the Sardinian ferences occurring on Poetto beach. Moreover, beach coasts (Buosi et al., 2017; De Muro et al., 2016; De cleaning operations (e.g. removal of P. oceanica ban- Muro, Porta, Passarella, & Ibba, 2017; De Muro, Pus- quettes or seagrass berm) and other maintenance pro- ceddu, Buosi, & Ibba, 2017). cedures (e.g. bulldozing) could affect beach morphology. 2. Study site 2.3. Wave climate and hydrodynamics 2.1. Regional setting The Gulf of Cagliari is characterized by low energy waves with a significant wave height (Hs) lower than The Cagliari Gulf is located in the south of Sardinia 1 m (80% of cases). The studied area is mainly exposed between two Paleozoic tectonic blocks (western Medi- to wind and waves coming from S (Figure 1). terranean Sea; Appendix 1). The gulf shows both the Highest wave heights on Poetto beach occurred extreme eastern edge of Cenozoic structures related to from October to April (Figure 1(E)). Waves coming the Oligo-Miocene graben-system (Casula, Cherchi, from SE were ∼66% of total wave events, maximum Montadert, Murru, & Sarria, 2001; Cherchi & Monta- wave height for this sector was 4.3 m, peak period dert, 1982) and the NW-SE Plio-Quaternary Campi- 11 s. Waves coming from SW were ∼34% of total dano graben. The calcareous Capo S. Elia promontory wave events,