EUROSION: Case Study: Cirqaccio - Ciracciello (Italy)

Coastal band of the examined site is constituted by a sandy beach of reduced extension. From the land side, the shoreline appears like a thin strip of sand bordered by a cliff on the back-beach, whose height decrease slightly going from Punta Serra to the far South of the beach. The violent sea-storms provoked both the coastal erosion and cliff damages with consequent slides whose results are still evident on the beach.

The south Tirreno weather conditions are strongly connected, as for the rest of Mediterraneo sea, to the Azores anticyclone position. During the summer this high pressure system is situated to the northern part of its annual cycle protecting the dock from the influence of Atlantic depression systems. During the winters the Azores anticyclone moves southward failing its protecting effect, so the Mediterraneo sea is interested to the transition of Atlantic depression crossing the dock during few days.

The coastal erosion has significantly cut down the beach and the sea attack has already reached the foot of the cliff, threatening its integrity.
The erosion reasons are due partly to natural phenomena and partly to man actions. Causes are:

• lack or reduction in sedimentary contributions coming from progressive dismantling of cliffs neighbouring to the site
• lack or reduction in sedimentary contributions coming from the mainland (not due to the human presence);
• a sand withdrawal in the submarine beach happened some years ago
• making of human structures close to the emerged and back beach.

The most important economical activity in the island is the fishing. Because of the nearness of the island to Napoli a lot of Procida inhabitants work in Napoli and travel daily.
The second economical activity is the tourism, connected with the very nice beaches of the island.

In Procida island, except for few breakwater, there is not a beach protection policy, but the public administration wants to avoid the use of severe protection works and for this reason they are testing the BMS solution. A complete monitoring program is performing in the beach interested by BMS. The program includes morfological and hydraulics (i.e. water table level) measures. These measures, at the moment partially available, have to be processed in next months.