Geomorphology in urban coastal environment: a case study from Rapallo city (Liguria, Italy)

Rapallo, with 30,000 inhabitants, is an important seaside tourist resort in the Eastern ligurian coast. It is internationally known since the beginning of the 20th century for elite tourism. Following the development of mass tourism, above all during 1960s and 1970s, the whole municipality has been affected by an intense urbanization – mainly due to construction of homes for holiday – which have strongly modified either the former landforms of the flood plain, either the surrounding slopes up to 150-200 m a.s.l. The area covered by urbanization has increased from approximately 45 ha in the early twentieth century, up to 175 ha in 1957, 600 ha in 1978 and 650 ha nowadays. This research is aimed to reconstruct the morphological transformations in a coastal environment, considering the historical changes due to human interventions and the related impact on geomorphological processes occurred since the 18th century. The study is based on field survey and on the interpretation and comparison among ancient and recent maps, aerial stereographic photos and orthophotos, on historic archive data, on drill analysis by several geotechnical investigations conducted on coastal-flood plain for civil and environmental purposes.