Coast protection in the Marche Region - Italy

EMERGENCY STRUCTURE FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE COAST AT MARINA PALMENSE (AP) ITALY.

The coast in correspondence of the Marina Palmense (AN) - Italy - tourist area is subject to severe erosion with substantial setbacks of the shoreline . To reduce the erosion of the beach , and waiting for a long term structural intervention, the tourist structures owners decided in 2011 to do an intervention of  semipermanent character with the placement of about 200 m of longitudinal  Stopwave barriers with weight of 3 tons each and measures of 1,5 x2, 2x0,45 m each . The containers have the advantage that can be filled with sand in the exsisting place. Also have a modest visual impact due to sand color and are made with a geotextile with technical characteristics to resist to vandalism and contain the sand with practically no losses ; if necessary, geocontainers are easy to remove once it realized the definitive operation . The geobags Stopwave were placed in the most critical areas and with the following configuration . The bags were placed in 5 rows close to the shoreline in order to dissipate the wave energy through wave breaking.

The Stopwave bags installed as protective structure have shown that , even if designed for a medium-term, to be able to provide protection to important structures after 3 years from the date . The bags, made of fibers with high tenacity Polypropylene 1.500 gr / sqm and resistant to UV rays have absorbed very well the energy of storm waves and create new sand beach in the front area. This installation , called “soft solution”, has also enabled the tourist to walk and stay on it (user-friendly),especially if compared with the conventional concrete and rock structures.