Educational goals: Introduce the students to major processes which control the evolution of the estuarine, coastal and continental shelf environments. Provide knowledge on the climatic and anthropogenic processes which drives the short to long term variation of the coastal zones. Furthermore, present the main techniques to contrast the coastal erosion and the best practices for the Integrated Coastal Zone management in order to develop a wide scale competence in coastal conservation.

Syllabus: the first part of the module is dedicated to the analysis of the morphodynamic and morphosedimentary features as well as to the processes that control the current dynamic of the estuarine, coastal and continental shelf zones. An additional focus is on the direct and indirect techniques for the acquisition of data in the above mentioned environments. The module also analyses the methodologies employed to define the current coastal hazard. This is based on palaeo-proxies of vertical and horizontal coastal changes and of extreme coastal events (extreme storms and tsunami). The module will be eventually focused on the available solutions for a correct coastal management with the description of a wide range of anthropogenic structures (eg., breakwaters, beach nourishments) and of the best practices for conservation and valorisation of the coastal zones in the context of the on-going climatic change.