On the predictability of nourishment performance by numerical models: a prototype case in Emilia Romagna, Italy

Beach erosion and attention to low environmental impact has recently drawn the attention to beach nourishment technologies. Designers need tools to plan such interventions, as regards volume, shape and position of the deposits and also to estimate the efficiency in time. To this general aim, the contribution presents a case study in the Emilia Romagna littoral, Lido di Dante, Ravenna, where a nourishment with off-shore dredged sands took place last Spring. By using the information collected from field campaigns as input data and terms of comparison, fully morphodynamic simulations with the 2DH MIKE21 MFM by DHI Water & Environment & Health are performed to reproduce the first six months of beach evolution after beach replenishment. Even if model settings optimize computational effort, the model appears to provide a fair predictability of nourishment performance thanks to the good quality of input and calibration data.