DESIGN STRATEGIES AND MANAGEMENT OF COASTAL PROTECTION SYSTEMS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY Piero Ruol1, Barbara Zanuttigh

2 and Luca Martinelli 2

Aim of this note is to describe some coastal protection schemes with low environmental impact, propose an optimal design strategy and encourage sustainable management of the Mediterranean coastal protection system. It is seen that the procedure for designing an environmental friendly coastal defence requires the interaction of several competences: ecology, economy, sociology geology and engineering.

INTRODUCTION

Major threats for large stretches of European coasts are erosion and flooding, which are mainly caused by: loss of river sediment load (due to hydraulic works, bridles, crossbars, dams, on rivers); subsidence (natural or anthropogenic, the latter due to extraction of water, gas , oil, etc.); inappropriate interception of long-shore transport (presence of hard defence, works and harbours along the coasts); dune decay (due to inappropriate management). Effects of climate change (sea level rising, extreme storm events increasing their frequency and intensity, shoreline receding, dune system destroying, low-land flooding, etc.) concur in amplifying beach erosion and coastal vulnerability. The Mediterranean areas will be among those most stricken by climate change and a great deal of damages is to be expected given also the foreseen increase of anthropic pressure along the coasts (318 to 584 cities from 1950 to 2005, about 70 million of people in year 2000 forecasted to be up to 90 million by 2025 Plan Bleu Report, 2005). In this frame it is evident the need of a strategic and sustainable management of sediments, paying attention to the new environmental aspects involved in the related activities with a particular emphasis on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). It is noteworthy that the E.U. project EUROSION stressed both the shortage of coastal sediments and the improperness of the current Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) practices... in addressing coastal erosion matters. Aim of this note is to describe some coastal protection schemes with low environmental impact, propose an optimal design strategy and act as a spur for a sustainable management of the Mediterranean coastal protection system.

1 2

IMAGE, Padova University, Via Ogissanti 39, Padova, 35129, Italy DISTART, Bologna University, V.le Risorgimento 2, Bologna, 40136, Italy

2 In the next Section, examples of pure nourishments, submerged, low crested and innovative structures are given. Then, the design procedure for the choice of a sustainable defence is suggested and conclusions are drawn.
COASTAL PROTECTION SCHEMES

Sustainable coastal development starts from the recognition of the beach functions and from the evaluation of the economic and ecological components, see for instance the results achieved by the recent Interreg IIIc project "Beachmed-e". In Tab. 1, a synthesis of the beach functions, the various characteristics of the associated uses and policies aiming at protecting beaches are proposed. Tab. 1 summarises why beach protection is required, while in Tab. 2 shows the possible protection schemes, with a potential low environmental impact, described in the following sub-sections.
Table 1. Beach functions and public policies with regard to beach protection (from Beachmed-e, ICZM Phase B Report, www.beachmed.it). Direct use Indirect use Market use Beach protection to Environmental risks protection promote tourism activities (agricultural land, dunes, etc.) Renewable natural resource protection (fish, etc.) Non-market use Beach protection to Landscape conservation promote leisure activities Renewable natural resource protection (fish, etc.) Habitat protection loss (posidonia, etc.) Biodiversity conservation Sediment flows conservation Marine floods assessment Table 2. Possible design alternatives in case of large erosive problems Cross-shore dominated Long-shore dominated transport transport Alternative 1 Heavy nourishment with suitable off-shore dredged sands (most environmental friendly) Alternative 2 Nourishment using suitable Nourishment using suitable near-shore dredged (consolidated) near-shore dredged sands sands + + Low crested structures Submerged groins Alternative 3 Nourishment using suitable Nourishment using suitable near-shore dredged (example of near-shore dredged sands sands innovative solution) + + Algae or geosynthetics Filtering groin

Nourishment

It is generally accepted that pure nourishment is the scheme with lower environmental impact on the defended area. The main drawbacks are the lack of suitable material and the impact caused by the works. In order to reduce cost and pollution and to avoid traffic, road transport is substituted by transport via pipelines.

3 Sand is mixed with seawater in a 1:3 - 1:7 ratio, and pumped through the pipes, taking into consideration that the flow velocity needs to be high enough to avoid depositions, but as low as possible to minimise head losses and pipe abrasion. The sand is conveniently dredged form offshore mines (Fig. 1) or moved across the shoreline with a permanent or temporary by-pass from accretion areas, such as updrift the ports, to nearby suffering beaches (Fig. 2). Offshore nourishment is cost effective only in case of large quantities, e.g. dredgings of the order of 1'000'000 m3, to be carried to one or more beaches. Example of such kind of works can be found in Burcharth et al. (2007), Beachmed (2004) and Preti (2002). Longshore movements are carried out by means of (temporary) by-passes. A sort of funnel is built where bulldozers collect the sand. The hole where the pump suction head is placed is sometimes protected by sheet-pilings (Fig. 3) so that vehicles can safely approach the borders. Additional pumping (or booster) stations may be required for long pipeline reaches (Corbau et al. 2007). Recently an interesting approach to management of sediment stocks has been proposed through combined interventions of port dredging and beach nourishment (Martinelli, 2008).

Figure 1. TSHD Dredger during suction operations.

Figure 2. Pipe outlet: the flow of mixed water and sand can be seen.

Figure 3. Pump suction head attached to an hydraulic excavator.

Low crested structures

Structures are considered to be low crested (LCS) if they are submerged or regularly overtopped when emerged. An example is given in Fig. 4. Effectiveness of this kind of structures was recently subject of the European project Delos. Design guidelines are given in Burchart et al. 2007. In short, compared to traditional structures, they have a lower visual impact, they induce a lower wave energy dissipation (dependently on their crest freeboard) and a higher water recirculation in the protected cell. Therefore they avoid deposition of fine material leeward of the structure and assure higher water quality.

Figure 4. Low crested structures at Lido di Dante (RA).

5 Overtopped water tend to accumulate in the protected area rising the water level, thus causing the so called "piling up" (water level increase) (Ruol, 2004). In presence of a careless design, piling up induced currents may cause deep erosion holes at gaps and roundheads. The LCS which are deeply submerged, i.e. if their height is lower than - say half the water depth even at ordinary low tide, behave in a rather different way. The structure should be sufficiently wide to induce wave breaking on its crest and achieve two main goals: the reduction of the energy of higher incoming waves, moving slightly offshore the longshore currents, and the stabilisation of the cross-shore profile. An example of a successful scheme with submerged barriers is given in Fig. 5.

Figure 5. Deeply submerged barriers at Pellestrina (VE).

Filtering groins

Recent works in the Northern Adriatic coast suggested the use of filtering groins, i.e. short groins made of an array of wood piles (see Fig. 6) or of concrete piles (Fig. 7a, b) embedded in the soil up to a water depth of 2-3 m.

Figure 6. Filtering groins at Lido di Spina (FE).

Compared to traditional rubble mound groins, they are more porous and their mutual distance is generally shorter. Consequently they entrap a lower quantity of sediments, reducing the shoreline discontinuity and they are more effective in

6 lowering long-shore currents close to the groynes heads, thus reducing the risk of local scour developing.

Figure 7. Filtering groins under construction a) and in operation b) at Jesolo (VE)

Non traditional systems (e.g. vegetation, geosynthetics, etc.)

The principle of placing artificial algae (Fig. 8 a, b) on the bottom in order to increase wave energy dissipation (Mendez & Losada, 2004; Tschirky et al., 2000) follows from the observation of the effect of Posidonia Oceanica. Natural phanerogams are unfortunately at high risk of extinction, mainly because they cannot tolerate high turbidity and high deposition and/or polluted water.

Figure 8 a). Artificial algae

Figure 8 b). Deposition induced by algae

The use of geosynthetics is of increasing interest in designing coastal protection structures (Ruol, 2004). Geotubes or geobags, for example, have a principle of operation similar to the previous one, i.e. they induce wave energy dissipation, creating less environmental impacts if compared with rigid (rock) structures (Fig. 9a, b; Fig. 10a, b). Among this category of non traditional systems of beach protection, many other solutions have been proposed and analysed in recent years, but it is not aim of this paper to enter into the details of such solutions.
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN PROCEDURE

Traditional design of coastal defences essentially consists in the engineering sizing of the structure (height, width, rocks or concrete units, etc.) to get a desired beach protection, e.g. in case of a barrier parallel to the coast a certain transmission coefficient and in case of a groyne system a certain amount of

7 trapped sediment must be defined. This design, performed very often at local scale (municipalities, or even touristic resorts) without accounting for the effects on the adjacent beaches, produced for instance along the Northern Adriatic coast, the disruption of the ecosystem equilibrium and conditions that in several cases are actually unsustainable and would require an intervention in the close future.

Figure 9 a). Sand bags groins

Figure 9 b). Geo-bags

Figure 10 a). Geocontainers at Alassio (SV)

Figure 10b). Placement

A careful design strategy shall consider several steps. Before planning an intervention, political (i.e. European, national, regional policies), technological (for instance, availability of a given construction material), environmental (for instance impact on water quality and species) and social (as the choice between sand and gravel, or between emerged or submerged structures) constraints should be identified.

8 After a preliminary selection of design alternatives, each of these has to be examined and compared with respect to its technical, socio-economical and environmental performance. 2DH numerical prediction of the hydro-morphological consequences of different defence schemes and their suitability to accomplish the design objectives may assist designers in the selection of the best defence scheme or in the optimization of existing ones (Burcharth et al., 2007). Estimated waves and currents allow, for instance, to evaluate the inshore wave energy reduction with the consequent level of beach protection; the water residence time inside the protected cell to assess water recirculation (and thus also water quality) for ecological purposes; the current patterns and intensities, in particular at gaps and roundheads, to verify bathing safety. Estimated sediment transport allows, for instance, to evaluate the global sand volume balance for the protected cell, in order to estimate if renourishment is necessary and, if it is, its quantity and frequency; the formation of local scour that may produce structure instability, in order to redesign a proper toe protection or structure extension; the erosive/depositional patterns and their rate to identify the level of disturbance to the assemblages for ecological purposes. The results of analyses and numerical and/or physical modelling have to be judged by different experts and then have to be synthesized defining appropriate indicators such as: performance of the scheme for beach protection; initial and maintenance costs; impact on habitats, species, ecosystem and their living natural resources; cultural heritage of the coastline; recreational value. A proper weight has to be assigned to each indicator and a mark for each alternative is derived from the weighted sum of all indicators, providing an objective selection of the optimum scheme. An example of application of this design strategy, referred to Lido di Dante, a small seaside resort in the Northern Adriatic Sea, 7 km from the town of Ravenna, is investigated (details are published in Zanuttigh et al., 2005). The beach of Lido di Dante is supposed to be protected only by the three groynes (as in 1983) without the barriers and connectors built up in 1996 (aerial picture in Fig. 11). This layout will allow to check the effects of different design solutions.

Figure 11. Plan view of Lido di Dante in 1993. From Zanuttigh et al. (2005).

9 The sandy beach of Lido di Dante has a concave shape and is more than 2500 m long. It can be divided into two parts: the Northern beach (almost 600 m long) has been subject to strong erosion and therefore it has been protected by groynes, nourishment and semi-submerged breakwater. In contrast, the Southern beach has undergone slight erosion and is in a very natural state. Shoreline retreat is mainly caused by the reduced sediment transport rates of the rivers and by the anthropogenic and natural subsidence, which justifies a beach recession rate of 3m/year. Erosion has disrupted the equilibrium of the beach, with major damage when storm surges are coupled with high tides. Littoral recession, such as erosion of dunes and land subsidence, together with building of tourism facilities, has altered and partially destroyed the maritime pinewoods behind the dunes. The main objective of the design is the maintenance of an adequate beach for recreational bathing activity. The achievement of this objective also provides a proper protection of land and infrastructures. It is indeed necessary to avoid possible flooding, to protect residential properties and roads and all the human activities on which the economy and safety of the village depends. Several alternatives can be found, among which only the following were examined, based on social and environmental constraints (Fig. 12): 0) pure beach nourishment with sand; 1) single submerged detached breakwater; 2) emerged multi-structure system; 3) extension of 2 of the existing groynes; 4) composite structure (extension of the edge groynes, to reach the submerged detached breakwater). Some of the discarded solutions and the reason for which they were not considered can be briefly mentioned. Beach nourishment with pebbles or gravel would have contrasted with one of the social requirements, which is the use of fine sand. Similarly, the choice of a revetment would have not provided a beach for recreational use. Finally, sand filled geotextile bags cannot be considered as a possible solution due to the fact that they have already been used in Lido di Dante without success. The designer has first to characterize the meteomarine climate in the area before proceeding to a proper preliminary design of the selected alternatives based on structure stability considerations. In order to get reliable results in a reasonable time, the engineer has to collect data of waves and tides and to elaborate a simplified wave climate, which is energetically equivalent to the typical annual wave climate but is represented by a limited number of conditions, lets say a set of 7 waves coupled with the average tide in the area or, as in this case where tidal range is rather low, to no tide (see Tab. 3). Preliminary design of the selected alternatives is then carried out by using the specific formulae for structure stability for the main crosssections. Layouts are drawn considering shoreline evolution based on groyne length, distance between barriers and shoreline and gap lengths.

10
1
670

185

2
120

36 125

80 40

530

185 70

Figure 12. Plan view of the four selected design Alternatives (dashed line = submerged). From Zanuttigh et al. (2005). The four alternatives of Fig. 12 have been implemented in 2DH numerical models, considering the anticipated simplified wave climate, in order to determine their typical hydro-morphological response. An example of the most interesting results that can be obtained for one of the design solution (i.e. the case of the emerged multi-structure of Fig. 12-4), is shown in Fig. 13. What can the designer obtain from these simulations? From Fig. 13 some conclusions can be drawn, just to have an idea of this procedure. Wave agitation is almost null behind the barriers, whereas is still of importance at gaps (Fig. 13c).

11 Reduction of incident wave height on the shore (larger than 50%, even for the highest wave attack Wave 6) is responsible for two opposite effects: one, positive, the reduction of offshore sand transport from the emerged beach; the other, negative, the landward reduction of wave agitation that induces deposition of fine sediments. a) b)

c)

d)

e)

Figure 13. Example application of 2DH hydromorphological simulations: a) bathymetry with the emerged multi-structure; b) average erosive/depositional trend per day induced by the annual sediment transport; c) reduction of wave height for the most intense wave attack, Wave 6; surface elevation and current velocity induced by Wave 6 (d) and in the almost calm condition, Wave 7 (e).

12 Current speeds landward of the structures are in the range 0.1-0.3 m/s, whereas at the groyne roundheads reach peaks 0.4-0.5 m/s but since are redirected towards the beach do not cause problems to bathers (Fig. 13d). Due to the reduction in water mixing induced by the decrease of both wave and current intensities, the intervention will clearly increase the water residence time in the protected cell (that can be calculated as the area of the protected cell divided by the average current speed within it in the worst condition, Fig. 13e).
Table 3. Representative wave climate off-shore Lido di Dante beach (at -25 m depth) Wave n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wave direction [] 45 45 90 90 135 135 120 Hos [m] 1.5 4.0 1.5 3.5 1.5 3.5 0.3 Tm [s] 5.0 8.0 5.0 8.0 5.0 8.0 3.0 Wind velocity [m/s] 12 20 12 18 12 18 5 Frequency [%] 4.74 0.53 5.86 0.81 4.80 0.47 40.00

Table 4. Evaluation rank of design alternatives, including factors to be judged and weights. Numbers refer to labels of different alternatives as in Fig. 12, a part from 0 that means pure renourishment. Beach Ecological Social effects Total Global protection effects costs Mark Effects on adjacent littoral Ecological impacts Swimming safety Recreational use Mitigation effects Aesthetic impact Shoreline maintenance Alternative 0 1 2 3 4 Partial Weight Global Weight

1 4 5 2 3 1/2 1

3 5 2 1 4 1/2

5 4 1 3 2 2/3 1

1 2 3 3 2 1/3

3 2 4 5 2 1/3

4 5 2 3 5 1/3 1

1 2 5 4 3 1/3

2 4 3 1 5 -1

10.67 15.00 11.92 9.50 13.83

The erosive/depositional trends per day due to the annual wave climate in Fig.13b are derived by the weighted average (with frequencies shown in Tab. 3) of the erosive/depositional trends obtained for each wave. We say trends since it is worth to remember that these results are derived from the composition of the effects due to different waves on a fixed bottom bathymetry. Deposition occurs in the protected area and, in average, at the shoreline, whereas gaps and groyne roundheads are eroded. The mix of erosive and depositional patterns inside the cell will certainly induce some disturbance to the assemblages.

13 The erosion at gaps, close to the structure toe, may also create disturbance to the organisms colonising the barriers, a rocky habitat in a natural sandy one that will in time enhance species biodiversity. The accumulation process at the shoreline may produce salients/tombolos as in other places protected by breakwaters along the Emilia Romagna coast. It is important to consider also the effects of the barriers on the adjacent littorals, which will suffer from erosion, in particular the Southern one. The combination of the sediment transport patterns due to the different waves as presented in Fig. 13b gives also a quantitative prediction of the average sediment losses/deposits per year within the protected cell, of the average cross-shore and long-shore transport rates and thus of the required nourishment volumes. Similar considerations can be done for each design solution, leading to a comparative evaluation of their hydro-morphological performance. The prediction of the hydro-morphological effects combined with the calculation of the initial and maintenance costs of each defence scheme can guide the designer to the selection of the preferred one, as it is shown in Tab. 4 where the same weight in the final decision was assigned to beach defence, ecological impacts, social impacts and costs. After the selection of the most suitable scheme, the designer can proceed to optimize the defence system, based on specific considerations regarding its recreational use and aesthetic impact, and possible enhancement of living resources (colonizing species, fishery farms, etc.), see for low crested structures Burcharth et al. (2007).
CONCLUSIONS

This note briefly describes the procedure for an environmental design of coastal protections. It is seen that the interaction of several competences are required in order to set up a table with technical, ecological economic and social issues. The choice of the most suitable scheme, that should include the zero option, is therefore somewhat similar to an EIA evaluation, guided by technical arguments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The support from the following projects is acknowledged: DELOS Fp5 project contract EVK3-CT-2001-00041; Beachmed-e/GESA Interreg IIIc project BMe3S0155R-3.3; PRIN 2005-080197, "Cave sottomarine e ripascimenti: modellazione morfologica e applicazioni". The authors are also grateful to Ministero delle Infrastrutture - Magistrato alle Acque di Venezia for giving some of the pictures used in this paper.

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