The CENAS Project funded by the EU as part
of the Environmental Programme 1990-1994 addresses the
issue of the coastland evolution of the Eastern Po Plain
and future stability of the Upper Adriatic coastline
in relation to mean sea level rise, natural and anthropogenic
land subsidence, severe meteo-marine events and reduced
sediment inflow from the watercourses. The huge amount
of information needed to perform the study and the numerical
models developed to make predictions of the various
events are integrated into and handled by a Geographical
Information System (GIS) combined with a DMRS (Data
Management and Retrieval System) and a DEM (Digital
Elevation Model) of the area of interest.
Numerical modelling predictions up to 2100 of the major
processes which may impact on the Upper Adriatic morphodynamics
point out the precariousness of this coastal environment,
especially south of the Po river delta where much of
the present lowland is expected to be submerged by the
end of the next century and most of the area flooded
during a storm with only a one-year return period. The
integrated modelling approach used in the CENAS Project
is believed to be a good example of morphodynamical
analysis that may be extended to other coastal areas
of the world.
The results of the study are published
in “CENAS:
Coastline Evolution of the Upper Adriatic Sea due to
Sea Level Rise and Natural and Anthropogenic Land Subsidence”
editor Giuseppe Gambolati, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-5119-3, July 1998,
360 pp.
