NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS FOR COASTAL ADAPTATION: A MODELLING STUDY IN THE SICILY COAST (ITALY)

Since the middle of the last century, coastal ecosystems have experienced an unprecedently rapid decline in biodiversity and ecologic value (Waltham et al. 2020). The combination of climate change and anthropic activities has led to a global scale degradation of these habitats in terms of spatial extent and ecosystem functionality (Toimil et al., 2020). This occurrence entails not only the depletion of the species richness these environments encompass, but also a reduction in the ecosystem services they provide. However, coastal vegetation is more efficient in storing carbon than forests up to one order of magnitude (Mossman et al., 2022), besides being an effective climate regulator and pollutant filterer. Moreover, effectiveness of seagrass in wave energy attenuation is largely proven in literature, same applies to coastal wetlands in laminating flood surges (Ondiviela et al. 2014; van Zelst et al., 2021). In the present work, a study to investigate the performance of coastal NbS to mitigate climate change-driven flooding and erosion within a case study is carried out. An hydro- morphodynamic modelling chain is setup to assess the effectiveness of restoration actions to reduce coastal risk in present and future scenarios in a case study. The model is able to simulate dissipative effects of vegetation, and is employed to assess performance of a set of measures to reduce coastal flooding and erosion due to extreme wave events combined with sea level rise.