Since the beginning of this century, everywhere in the world, the coastal areas have, been affected by a widespread regression, which reached the critical stage after 1950. This situation is in contrast with the general trend of accretion that has affected the coastal zone in the past century. The 8000 kms of Italian coast show a large variety of shoreline. Today about forty- five percent of the Italian coast is threatened by a progressive and general degradation which mainly is manifested as beach erosion. This phenomenon seemed to worsen in the '50s after a long period of general beach stability (fig. 1). If one considers the intense interventions of man on its coasts for touristic purposes, by demolishing the dunes to create beach areas, summer residential and marine areas; the diminished fluvial sediment load to the sea by haphazard removal of riverbed material; the creased subsidence caused by groundwater, gas and oil extractions in areas too dose to the sea; one obtains a picture which easily explains the rapid instability of this coastal environment. This situation is present not only along the Italian coast but, in a greater or lesser degree, includes the coastlines of many other countries. This increased economic development, without worrying about what would be the future impact on the environment, tends to worsen the already precarious situation even more. From the end of the fifties, up to the present day, the coastal area -was used as an inexhaustible and indestructible property on which it would be possible to burden an infinite "number of works without this feeling the least bit. An improper exploitation (by 'robbery') was used in this fragile region, without taking into account the consequences, instead of managing it as a precious commodity which must last in time to permit better economic management.

In many Mediterranean coastal areas, have been observed that human activities-engineering works, such as large dams and reservoirs construction (hydroelectric power dams, irrigation dams and water supply dams), channelization (drainage pits and drainage dams, deepening and creation of canals), arrangement and redirection of the main beds of rivers and torrents, construction of jetties in the coastal zone and anti-erosion works (water breakers, large concrete rocks, etc.), motorway and railway line in operation or under construction, as well as other human interventions and activities (sand extraction from river beds, intensification and development of agriculture projects and industrialization, infrastructure works, embankments, exsiccation, deforestation, etc.), may seriously affect the sediment transfer and the environmental balance of inland and coastal environments (wetlands, lagoons, Deltas, estuaries and coastal areas). This work deals with the comparative account and evaluation of the impact to the environment and especially the changes to the sediment transfer and geomorphological evolution in river systems & coastal zones in Italy (northern Adriatic coastal zone), Romania (Danube river Delta) and Greece (Nestos and Spercheios river Delta, Western Peloponnesian coastal zone) caused by the human activity.

The huge territorial-economic-demographic dimensions of China would be an exemplary field in order to study the global issues of sustainable development and the the future of our world. Because China has to face the most extraordinary problems of the world , more than all other countries, studying their solutions would provide suggestions for our country and we will help it with our proposals. China should balance habited and lands, fertile and arid soils, to face climate change, pollution, spreading urbanisation, strong differences of urbanisation between coasts and inland, impacts on coastal zones. Furthermore ot seems necessary to manage greater revenue, new wellness and new leisure exigenses. The natural and antropic evolution of Italy and China territories share a long term historical record, since the two countries where cradle for highly-civilized populations, that produced documental material during the last two millennia, at least. They also share the presence in their territories of intensively industrialized and populated areas along the major rivers , the deltaic zones and the coastal zones. These deltaic apparatus and the adjacent coastal areas are characterized by a geomorphological trend controlled by natural (climate and environment) and antropic (deforestation and industrialization) changes. The increasing urbanisation of coastal cities leads to the modification of anemological patterns of the local circulation because of the formation of the urban heat island. This phenomenon is mainly produced by alteration of the land coverage usage in terms of both optical and conductive properties of new materials deployed ( buildings, flooring , etc.) and by production of heat generated by anthropogenic activities. The increased energetic of the planetary boundary layer over the urban canopy can strongly alter the local winds and, consequently, the precitative patterns as well as the recirculation of pollutants and their deposition pathways causing impacts on the human health and marine environment. The rate of these changes has not been constant during the last millennia, being mainly controlled by antropogenic variables at regional and global scales. We propose to compare and to define ,in the selected chinese and italian coastal zones, the effect of the the global and regional changes in the past times. On the basis of these studies we can understand the future evolutional trend of the selected areas. Our work will focus the comparison of the italian plain industrialization history, wich date back to the beginning of the last century, and the effects of the newly booming chinese economy which is in a huge expanding phase. We will also compare those recent changes to that occurred in the past , i.e., the beginning of intensive agricolture and farming, the alternating periods of wet and dry climate which induced important changes in the characteristics and rate of sediment supply in both natural systems. We also propose to recover and organize already collected geological, geophisical and environmental data in key selected location in chinese and italian coastal zones. A particular attention to the collection, elaboration and comparison of the geomorphological and cartographic data of the studied areas. The study of the variations of the bathymetry in shallow water to understand when the situation evolves to a dangerous state for the coastal equilibrium. The comparison of these data with the bathymetric data of the past times provides indications about the evolutional trend of the studied areas. The study of the surficial sediment distribution, with special attention to grain size parameters to provide sediments maps following both the Shepard and Nota classifications to evidence the variations of the energetic level in the coastal zone. The goal of the project is to give significantly contribute to enhancement of management plans of protected areas from floodplains, wetlands and coastal areas, by comprehensive consideration of geological diversity. Benefiting from the high italian experience, a geoturism strategy will be promoted in order to ensure long term development of the protected area through sustainable and quality tourism and to attenuate disparities between protected areas from the italian and the chinese seas. Finally_ researches from a comparative point of view of the national and the local legislations on environmental protection. Comparison between Italy and China with regard to the rules for the environmental protection. All the results of the studied chinese and italian selected areas will be used to try to answer to the following questions_ 1) are there differences in the geomorphological and sedimentological records of corresponding sectors of the selected natural systems at different times scale from the past times up to the present time? 2) Are these differences mainly controlled by local factors, such a different industrialization history, or by global forcing (global changes) ? 3) What is the environmental present-day status of these delicate environments under different anthropogenic pressures? 4) At the light of the italian experience , could we forecast the effect of intensive use of the territory under similar conditions in the present day China for the next future ? 5) Could we offer some warnings ? This is only a first attempt to face the same economical and environmental problems interesting the italian and chinese coastal zones.

Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) represents a well-established remote sensing technique for the investigation of ground deformation phenomena. Among the DInSAR techniques, the Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) approach exploits ground surface at two mapping scales, low and high resolution, and allows the detection and monitoring of local deformation processes that may affect single buildings or man-made structures in urban areas. This work investigates the capability improvement of the SBAS-DInSAR technique to analyse deformation processes in urban areas by exploiting SAR data acquired by the Cosmo-SkyMed (CSM) constellation in comparison with the results obtained from data of first generation ERS/ENVISAT radar systems of he European Space Agency. In particular, we extracted mean deformation velocity maps as seen by the three different radar systems and, for each coherent pixel, we retrieved the corresponding displacement time series. Our analysis was focused on the Torrino area where independent studies had already revealed significant deformation signals testified by the serious damages on many buildings in the area. Moreover, in order to understand the causes of the CSM observed displacement rates, reaching few cm per year, we also performed a comparative analysis between DInSAR products and independent information derived from electrical resistivity tomography data and geological maps.

La memoria presenta un'analisi delle potenzialità di sensori satellitari a bassa risoluzione spaziale per la stima di variabili idrologiche, quali la portata e il contenuto d'acqua, e per la calibrazione della modellistica idraulica attraverso la simulazione delle aree allagate. Per quanto riguarda la portata, si è ottenuta una buona correlazione tra i dati elaborati del radiometro MODIS e la velocità media per due sezioni del Fiume Tevere che ha permesso quindi di valutare la potenzialità di tali dati anche per la determinazione della scala di deflusso. L'assimilazione dei dati di contenuto d'acqua stimati dallo scatterometro a microonde ASCAT nella modellistica idrologica ha fornito un effettivo miglioramento per la previsione delle portate. Infine, l'uso di immagini SAR si è rivelato un grande supporto per la calibrazione della scabrezza nel modello idraulico applicato per un piccolo bacino dell'Alto Medio Tevere. I risultati sono, quindi, promettenti per l'effettivo utilizzo dei dati satellitari in condizioni operative.