Work packages

WP1: Critical review – Design approaches for coastal and harbor defense solutions

Leader RU: UniSALENTO

Participant RUs: UniCT, UniNA, UniRC

This WP will ground the project activities through a critical review of the state of art on the design of coastal and harbor defense solutions and of their adaptation options, by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of national and international guidelines. This WP will directly contribute to O1 and to the development of the activities of WP2, WP3, WP4 and WP5.

M1.1 – Critical review of existing design regulations, formulations and adaptation solutions

Task 1.1– Analysis of existing design regulations: all the RUs will contribute to the critical review and comparative analysis of weakness and strength of existing methodologies for the design of coastal and harbor defense solutions, which will establish the foundations for the development of a new probabilistic framework, able to deal with uncertainties related to the complexity of morphodynamic processes and of the interaction between waves and structures as well as the stochastic nature of external forcing, also in the presence of climate change.
Task 1.2 – Collection of existing design formulas: all the RUs will collect existing formulations for the description of failure mechanisms of rubble-mound breakwaters, vertical breakwaters, seawalls and artificial beach nourishments, in order to provide an overview of the available tools for the prediction of the defense performances and of their reliability, thus allowing the identification of weaknesses and gaps to be addressed within the project.
Task 1.3 – Review of adaptation solutions: all the RUs will carry out the critical review of state of art on the adaptation of existing coastal and harbor defense solutions to the effects of climate change, in order to produce a comprehensive summary of already explored interventions as well as to inspire the proposal of new.

WP2: Development & Validation – Probabilistic assessment of the performances of coastal and harbor defense solutions

Leader RU: UniCT

Participant RU: UniSALENTO

Based on the results of WP1, a probabilistic framework for the design of existing and adapted coastal and harbor defense solutions will be proposed, focusing on rubble-mound and vertical breakwaters, seawalls and artificial beach nourishments. This WP will directly contribute to O2 and to the development of the activities of WP5.

M2.1 – Set-up of the probabilistic framework

Task 2.1– Assessment of the failure probability: UniCT will develop a level III procedure based on the Monte Carlo simulation technique to calculate the failure probability of the system. In particular, the Monte Carlo simulation technique will be employed to code an algorithm for counting how many times the considered system is expected to reach a certain limit state during its lifetime, on the basis of the solicitation and resistance probabilistic features
Task 2.2 – Definition of performance and economic indexes: UniCT and UniSALENTO will cooperate to propose synthetic performance and economic indexes, maps and classifications, in order to facilitate the design and decision-making phases, or the comparison between different solutions and climate scenarios

M2.2 – Application of the probabilistic framework

Task 2.3 – Application to case studies: UniCT and UniSALENTO will apply the proposed probabilistic framework to a selection of emblematic Italian real case studies to find climate-resilient solutions, such as the Genoa vertical harbor breakwater, the Catania rubble-mound harbor breakwater and the Torre dell’Orso beach (Lecce). In this way, practical indications to future users of the proposed design tools will be provided.

WP3: Forcing characterization – Hydrodynamic loads on coastal and harbor defense solutions

Leader RU: UniRC

Participant RU: UniNA

A statistical approach will be proposed to derive probability functions of the hydrodynamic loads at the coastal or harbor defense solution site, taking into account the effects of climate change. This WP will directly contribute to O3 and to the development of the activities of WP2, WP4 and WP5.

M3.1 – Met-ocean data collection and downscaling

Task 3.1 – Collection of met-ocean datasets: UniRC and UniNA will collect existing met-ocean historical (measured or reanalysis) and projection scenarios, also assessing their reliability and mutual consistency. Such activities aim to build up a unique database for application to the Italian context. Particular care will be addressed to take in account climate change variations of sea level, wave conditions, storm surge, and precipitation, which are the relevant environmental drivers that produce coastal physical impacts. Concerning projections, the possible presence of temporal tendencies in the met-ocean Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca data will be assessed by means of two non-parametric tests. In particular, the identification of future trends in the met-ocean parameters will be detected by the Mann-Kendall test (Mann, 1945; Kendall, 1962), whereas the quantification of the magnitude linked to the increase/decrease of the involved quantities will be carried out through the Theil-Sen estimator (Sen, 1968).
Task 3.2 – Met-ocean data downscaling: UniRC and UniNA will work together to compare features and reliability of physical based and statistical based methods for downscaling met-ocean data at site of interest, including meteorological models, frequency resolved models, direction resolved frequency-integrated models, and regression-based models and deep learning. In this way, the most suitable downscaling model for the proposed probabilistic design framework will be identified.

M3.2 – Characterization of wave climate and sea levels

Task 3.3 – Multivariate analysis of wave climate and sea levels: UniRC and UniNA will analyze the downscaled met-ocean data and apply them to a robust multivariate statistical model to analyze extreme offshore waves, wind and sea levels around the Italian coasts. Particular attention will be drawn to the probabilistic characterization of expected sea level rise and increase of occurrence frequency of extreme events caused by climate change, that must be taken into account during the design process. The variables considered in this analysis will be significant wave height, wave period, wave direction, directional spreading, wind speed, wind direction and sea level. Of these, only wave height, wave period, wind speed and sea level require extrapolation to extremes. The approach followed here will be risk-based, in that it seeks to define extremes of response variables directly, rather than the joint extremes of the sea conditions which, if applied without correction factors, may lead to the underestimation of failure risks and under design of coastal structures

WP4: Response characterization – Failure mechanisms of coastal and harbor defense solutions

Leader RU: UniNA

Participant RUs: UniCT, UniRC, UniSALENTO

The response of coastal and harbor defense solutions to external forcing is usually described by conceptual or empirical formulations based on field, experimental or numerical data. However, state of art formulas refer only to newly built solutions and not to adapted ones. This WP will allow to define probabilistic reliability functions for ultimate and serviceability limit states (ULS and SLS) for different type of new and non-conventional defense/upgrading/adaptation strategies, based on the analysis of experimental and numerical results. This WP will directly contribute to O3 and to the development of the activities of WP2 and WP5.

M4.1 – Assessment of existing and adapted defense solutions

Task 4.1 – Characterization of existing and adapted solutions: UniNA and UniCT will define a methodology for the characterization of the deterioration level of existing defense solutions and for the selection of the most suitable adaptation options, considering local limitations and constraints. Such a methodology will employ available design documents and field data including geotechnical state of the foundation soil, which is fundamental to infer the degree of safety of the structures under different climate scenarios as well as select the most appropriate adaptation options
Task 4.2 – Comparative analysis of failure mechanisms: UniRC and UniSALENTO will work on the classification and comparative analysis of failure mechanisms of both conventional and adapted defense solutions, focusing on rubble-mound and vertical breakwaters, seawalls and artificial beach nourishments, in order to provide useful insight to plan the experimental tests and the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations of the following tasks

M4.2 –Experimental and numerical datasets on failure mechanisms for the definition of probabilistic reliability functions for ultimate
and serviceability limit states

Task 4.3 – Investigation on rubble-mound breakwaters: after defining the fault tree for existing and upgraded rubble-mound breakwaters, UniNA, UniCT, and UniSALENTO will investigate the response of new and adapted structures, both emerged and submerged, with different armor units, considering wave conditions from deep to extremely shallow waters. New and existing experimental and numerical data will be collected, to improve the comprehension of failure mechanisms related to the collapse of the armor layer, excessive wave overtopping discharge, scour of the structure foundation and sinking a low-crested barriers.
Task 4.4 – Investigation on vertical breakwaters: UniRC will handle the collection of experimental and numerical data on the response of vertical breakwaters for the definition of the fault tree for linked-caisson structures. Existing dataset will be analyzed together with new acquisitions of experimental data concerning the resistance against sliding of gravity structures having different lengths, subjected to horizontal forces characterized by different eccentricity. This investigation will be carried out in laboratory on small scale models of caissons placed on a sandy bottom. The aim is to quantify the ultimate limit state load and resistance factor design (LRFD) of superficial foundations on non-cohesive soil. These tests will permit us to define the existence domain of a newly introduced “sliding index”, whose definition will be based on a multivariate gaussian density function. This index will permit us the compare the probability of sliding/turning of a set of caissons joined by themselves through structural element able to transmit shear forces from one caisson to the adjacent ones. The practice to join caisson can be particularly useful for increasing the resistance against sliding of damaged breakwater.
Task 4.5 – Investigation on seawalls: UniNA and UniSALENTO will carry out the collection of experimental and numerical data on the response of simple and protected seawalls with different foreshore angles, water depths and wave periods, focusing on the failure mechanisms related to excessive wave overtopping, scour of the structure foundation, and rock units sinking in the presence of toe berms.
Task 4.6 – Investigation on artificial beach nourishments: UniNA will investigate the long and short-term response of artificial beach nourishments in both open coast and bounded limited situations, by performing numerical simulations for different geometrical characteristics (berm height, long-shore and cross-shore width, closure depth), and sediment characteristic (grain size, density, transport coefficient). Failure mechanisms related to long term processes (diminishing of the plan shape amplitude of the nourishment due to the littoral drift), short term processes (diminishing of the total volume of the nourishment due to the storm impact) and arising of the sea level (set up and run-up) will be considered.

WP5: Knowledge sharing & Capacity building

Leader RU: UniSALENTO

Participant RUs: UniCT, UniNA, UniRC

The aim of this WP is to develop practical tools for designers, policy and decision-makers, to advance design quality and to attract the interest of a wider audience on the problem addressed by PROMETEO. Therefore, this WP will directly contribute to O4, through the proper conveyance and presentation of the results of WP1, WP2, WP3 and WP4.

M5.1 – PROMETEO web-platform

Task 5.1 – Creation of the web-platform: UniSALENTO and UniCT will create a web-platform to foster the usability of the project results and improve planning and design practice, by making available to stakeholders, researchers and general audience procedures and codes developed by PROMETEO.

M5.2 – Workshops

Task 5.2 – Organization of workshops: all RUs will be involved in the organization of workshops and of the final conference to present ongoing and final project developments to stakeholders (institutions, decision-makers, professionals, university students, construction companies) as well as to disseminate the project results to a wider audience (e.g. Annual Water Day, Night of Researchers, University Open Days).

M5.3 – Publications

Task 5.3 – Scientific publications: all the RUs will work together on the production of at least two joint peer-reviewed open-access scientific papers, and will attend to at least one international or national conference.

WP6: Management & Coordination