Coupling land use evolution and subsidence in the Po Delta, Italy: Revising the past occurrence and prospecting the future management challenges

Assessing Po River Deltaic Vulnerability Using Earth Observation and a Bayesian Belief Network Model

“…Indeed, over the last 50 years, coastal erosion affects both the emerged and the submerged (prodelta) systems [64], and a marked reduction of sediment supply led to a fast degradation and shoreline retreat [65] accelerated by human activity [42]. Most significant changes in terms of land use and land cover evolution is represented by a decrease in saltmarshes and a broadening of agricultural areas [66]. Additionally, over the last century, an artificial surface significantly spread out, and natural swamp and salt marsh areas decreased by 85% [66].…”

“…Most significant changes in terms of land use and land cover evolution is represented by a decrease in saltmarshes and a broadening of agricultural areas [66]. Additionally, over the last century, an artificial surface significantly spread out, and natural swamp and salt marsh areas decreased by 85% [66]. These and other interventions have deeply modified the physical and ecological characteristics of the Po Delta, determining a drastic change in existing ecosystems, together with a general decrease in the standards of environmental quality.…”

“…At the delta-plain scale, many studies have already evaluated the Observed SLR trends from tide gauge data between 2010 and 2019 also showed a general rise in the Adriatic Sea level, which ranges from 6.7 cm to 7.2 cm [68][69][70][71]. This situation is particularly alarming for the coastal restoration, mostly in the areas around the Po River Delta [9,33,66]. Indeed, the SLR [68,69] expected over the next 40-50 years will accentuate the transgressive phenomenon.…”

“…Together with the aforementioned aspects making this region particularly vulnerable to coastal erosion and flooding, anthropic pressures (e.g., tourism, industry, and fishery) and the effect of climate change (acting on wave dynamics and sea-level rise) are expected to affect the mobilization of sediments along the shoreline in the next few decades, with potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts [13]. At the delta-plain scale, many studies have already evaluated the potential impacts and vulnerability aspects, including the consideration of most relevant deltaic processes [19,72], among them natural and anthropogenic subsidence rates [33,60,66,73] and related relative sea level rise (RSLR) [33,59,73,74], changes in the land use [66], and coastal erosion processes [9,13]. Despite the fact that it has been demonstrated that the Po River has resumed delta progradation since 2010, this has occurred especially in its northern portion [65], highlighting the fact that the analysis of spatial and temporal vulnerability variations is required, since processes are spatially non-uniform.…”

“…These phases include (1) data input, what includes definition, categorization, and homogenization of the variables; (2) BBN model design, which includes the organization of conditional probabilities between variables; and (3) vulnerability assessment, which includes the testing scenarios and the sensitive analysis. relative sea level rise (RSLR) [33,59,73,74], changes in the land use [66], and coastal erosion processes [9,13]. Despite the fact that it has been demonstrated that the Po River has resumed delta progradation since 2010, this has occurred especially in its northern portion [65], highlighting the fact that the analysis of spatial and temporal vulnerability variations is required, since processes are spatially non-uniform.…”