This Special Publication provides a range of methods and approaches for characterizing and modelling mass-wasting phenomena responsible for land degradation and erosion in rocky coastal areas. Rocky coasts occur in a variety of geological settings with a wide range of morphologies depending on rock type, tectonics and climate. In all these settings, slope instability represents the most important geological process that significantly influences the human use of coastal resources over a range of magnitudes and periods of recurrence.
The reported case studies in the volume deal with land-born geological processes that deliver sediment to the coast and open sea at intermittent time intervals, often with catastrophic implications. They include large slope failures on both volcanic and non-volcanic coastal areas, cliff recession and floods of coastal streams from key areas of the Italian peninsula. All these studies seek to establish sea-land correlations based on marine geophysical investigations and field analyses, and to highlight the role of documentary sources in order to recognize geological constraints for hazard assessment in rocky coastal areas.