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!
Hola Tyler!
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of coastline. I didn't realize so much of it was low-lying. The Philippines, like all other island nations have significant coastlines to manage as well. Coastal erosion is a serious issue, as well as storms.
I was surprised that there can be such significant wave heights from storms in Italy, 7 meters! That's some big waves. I can imagine that could cause major damage to a coastal town. Do they have sea walls as well as jetties?
I was wondering what your theory might be for the different coastlines found on Sardinia compared to Sicily? Is it because Sicily is much farther South, or maybe because it is more volcanic, being on the fault line?
I know a lot of the Greek myths talk about the storms in the Mediterranean Sea, like the Odyssey, when Odysseus was trying to return home to Sicily and it took him 10 years. Of course there were also angry Gods involved... But certainly the myths were based on ancient observations of their environment, so I could see how 7 meter high waves might lead you to think the Gods hated your town.
Nico