Coastal protection / hazard mitigation

The Port of Alicante is finalizing the installation of a new environmental barrier at Pier 17, where bulk unloading is carried out, based on a water atomization method that allows dust particles to fall to the ground of the port area and not arrive by air to the city. (Ref 11) This initiative comprises activities to reduce pollution in the port, such as a vegetable barrier against the air pollution produced by the dust during the unloading of bulk materials, supplied by an irrigation system that recovers non-drinkable water from a nearby plant. It includes the extension of the Parque del Mar, to recover historical points for tourism and the funding of a research project on air pollution (Ref. 12). “This measure is integrated within the Plan of Urban Integration of the Port of Alicante, improving the landscape impact and the port-city boundary zones from the southern access of the urban environment, along with the “Parque del Mar”, to the west zone with the installation of vegetal screens in the inner zone of the port, contributing to an important particle retention and CO2 reduction.” (Ref. 1). Inside the park, which can be traversed through paths, there is a small ornamental lake with rockery and it has children's games and petanque courts, gymnastics courts and recreational areas. The green corridor has been created with the creation of artificial mounds, for which 65,000 cubic meters of earth have been necessary, which act as a vegetal screen and visually and acoustically isolate the port facilities of the city. (Ref 7)

The Venice Lagoon is characterised by intensive agriculture and by a web of drainage channels discharging into the rivers. The Veneto Region, through the “Plan for diffuse pollution prevention and restoration of water in the draining basins of the Venice Lagoon” financed measures of re-calibration of riverbeds aimed at the renaturation of the hydraulic web, to increase the time of permanence of water and phytodepuration processes in the draining basin. This case study, in particular, includes measures on the drainage channels discharging into the Dese river, one of the main water bodies of the Venice Lagoon basin. In particular, it aimed at re-structuring the effluents of the mid-course of the Dese river (Rio S. Martino, Rio S. Ambrogio and Scolo Desolino). (1).

The project LIFE SeResto (LIFE12 NAT/IT/000331) aimed to trigger a process of aquatic recolonisation in “Northern Lagoon of Venice”, mainly through the transplantation of "Zostera marina" and "Zostera noltei" to small sites distributed throughout the area. The proposed intervention technique involved transplanting a small number of plants, with advantages in terms of lower costs and impact on the donor sites (1).