Historical Change and Trend Evolution Assessment of Coastline between Salerno and Agropoli Towns, Sele Plain (Southern Italy)

In the Mediterranean, the coastal population was estimated at 146 million in 1990 and the urban coastal population alone is expected to rise to 176 million by 2025, with 350 million of tourists per year. In these zones, to forecast the shoreline loca- tion and its changes through time, is fundamental to coastal scientists, engineers and decision-makers planning a reduction of the territorial vulnerability at both long and short term. The prediction of coastal evolution is complex because it is related to both the analysed spatial and temporal scales over which coastal changes occur, and to the interdependence between different components of the coastal system. Despite these difficulties, this prediction is necessary to identify the areas that could be more severely hit by erosion over decades to centuries. The main aim of this paper is to define the shoreline variability of Sele Plain (South- ern Italy) from Salerno to Agropoli towns in the last 140 years. To this purpose 170 transects, spaced every 200 m across nine shoreline tracts, were analysed in order to measure the variations between two successive shorelines, and the linear regression trend over 140 years. This analysis showed that in Sele Plain the highest rates of erosion, generally localized around the river mouths (Picentino river, mean value: -0.4 m·y−1; Sele river, mean value: -1.3 m·y−1), decreased in the last 20 years