A project for a protected re-nourishment of the Coastline of Giardini Naxos, the touristic beach in the neighbouring area of Taormina (North - Eastern Sicily)

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Messina
lanzas@unime.it ; grandazzo@unime.it

Abstract

The municipality of Giardini Naxos, a small town of about 10,000 inhabitants, located in the northern part of the Ionian coast of Sicily, between the cities of Messina and Catania, thanks to its tourism, together with the neighbouring municipality of Taormina, is one of the most important tourist attractions in Italy.In the last few decades the coastline of Giardini Naxos has undergone severe erosion due to problems which have also affected other coastal areas. Furthermore the hard protection structures (emerged breakwaters and groins) which were placed to protect the shoreline have given way to an irregular evolution of the coastline, protecting at times, the area immediately behind, but increasing the erosive phenomena in the neighbouring areas and causing a general and evident decay of the beach. In order to fill the knowledge gap proven by the results of previous interventions, the bay of Giardini Naxos was therefore monitored for almost a year before the beginning of the project. The results showed that the sediments shifted “slightly” from the northern part to the southern part of the bay, partially filling the harbour. The main concern of the town was to find the most ecological way to save the beach: the protection project foresaw an artificial re-nourishment of about 200.000 cubic metres, protected by an 800 m submerged breakwater placed along the 5 m isobath and the removal of the existing hard protection structures.