Investigate seawater intrusion
The main aim of this research project is the detailed study of selected karst coastal areas to investigate seawater intrusion (through a combination of historical hydrological and hydrogeological data, and analyses on catchment balance and recharges), validated by geophysical surveys to identify the current amount of salinization, and the effects at the surface (in the forms of sinkhole occurrence and later evolution, eventually producing wide wetlands; Margiotta & Parise 2019), to eventually assess the possible future scenarios related to predictions of sea level rise at different time scales.
Final objective
The final objectives of this study are mainly:
- realization and updating of a website and a GIS to describe seawater intrusion processes and the main processes of instability acting underground, and their propagation and effects at the ground surface;
- describing from many different standpoints (hydrogeology, geomorphology, structural geology, geophysics, rock mechanics, engineering geology, speleogenesis, etc.) all subterranean and surface forms in the selected environments;
- understand in detail the evolution of fast developing underground systems;
- investigate the relationship between water table, underground voids and the land surface (sinkholes, subsidence, etc.), and the likely effects on the anthropogenic environment (in terms of direct effects due to sinkhole occurrence, and of indirect effects deriving from water salinization in agriculture);
- define future scenarios, driven by climate changes, to predict the most likely situations for saltwater intrusion and sinkhole development along selected areas of the Apulian coastal karst.
