Italy is surrounded on three sides by large bodies of water. We have talked this semester about flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis, and much more devastating Italian regions.
With the entire country being one large Peninsula there are several Coastal Issues. The biggest issue being coastal erosion from loss of sediment.
At climatechange.org they talk about the different coastal areas and the causes of erosion and other coastal issues. Several factors help with erosion like river damns, and jetties to protect harbors.
"The Italian coastline has a length of about 7500 km, of which about
3950 km (53%) are low or delta coastlines. Sand or gravel beaches
stretch for approximately 3,240 km, whereas the remaining part are
cliffs plunging into the sea and enclosing small pocket beaches. Sicily
and Sardinia have 1,623 and 1,897 km of coastline, respectively. Sand or
gravel beaches are prevalent on the former (1,117 km) and rock coasts
on the latter (1,438 km).
Tidal range is very limited, about 0.3 m along most of the Italian
coast. Most Italian shores are exposed to severe storms, with extremes
on the western Sardinia coast (annual significant wave height = 7.0 m)" (climatechange.org).
For more from climatechange.org click the link above!
