It is well established that most of the plastic pollution found in the oceans is transported via rivers. Unfortunately, the main processes contributing to plastic and debris displacement through riparian systems is still poorly understood. The Marine Litter Drifter project from the Arno River aims at using modern consumer software and hardware technologies to track the movements of real anthropogenic marine debris (AMD) from rivers. The innovative “Marine Litter Trackers” (MLT) were utilized as they are reliable, robust, self-powered and they present almost no maintenance costs. Furthermore, they can be built not only by those trained in the field but also by those with no specific expertise, including high school students, simply by following the instructions. Five dispersion experiments were successfully conducted from April 2021 to December 2021, using different types of trackers in different seasons and weather conditions. The maximum distance tracked was 2845 km for a period of 94 days. The activity at sea was integrated by use of Lagrangian numerical models that also assisted in planning the deployments and the recovery of drifters. The observed tracking data in turn were used for calibration and validation, recursively improving their quality. The dynamics of marine litter (ML) dispersion in the Tyrrhenian Sea is also discussed, along with the potential for open-source approaches including the “citizen science” perspective for both improving big data collection and educating/awareness-raising on AMD issues.

The action of propeller-induced jets on the seabed of ports can cause erosion and the deposition of sediment around the port basin, potentially significantly impacting the bottom topography over the medium and long term. If such dynamics are constantly repeated for long periods, a drastic reduction in ships' clearance can result through accretion, or the stability and duration of structures can be threatened through erosion. These sediment-related processes present port management authorities with problems, both in terms of navigational safety and the optimization of management and maintenance activities of the port's bottom and infrastructure. In this study, which is based on integrated numerical modeling, we examine the hydrodynamics and the related bottom sediment erosion and accumulation patterns induced by the action of vessel propellers in the passenger port of Genoa, Italy. The proposed new methodology offers a state-of-the-art science-based tool that can be used to optimize and efficiently plan port management and seabed maintenance.

In this work, we analyze the geomagnetic field measurements collected from 2017 to 2020 at the Italian observatories of Lampedusa and Duronia (an island and inland site, respectively) for investigating a possible signature of the tidal sea water level changes on the local magnetic variations. We obtain the following main results: (a) evidence of the geomagnetic power spectral peaks at the solar and lunar tidal main frequencies at both sites is found; (b) by using a robust fit procedure, we find that the geomagnetic field variations at Lampedusa are strongly influenced by the lunar tidal variations in the sea level, while at Duronia, the main effects on the geomagnetic field variations are associated with diurnal solar ionospheric tides; (c) a single-station induction arrows (SSIAs) investigation reveals different behaviors between Lampedusa and Duronia. Specifically, Lampedusa shows that the induction arrows in different frequency ranges point toward different directions with different amplitudes, probably related to the surrounding regions with different water depths, while Duronia shows a persistent coast effect, with the induction arrows pointing toward the Adriatic sea; and (d) a Superposed Epoch Analysis reveals, only for Lampedusa, a close relationship between SSIAs with a frequency of >2 mHz (<1.3 mHz) and the sea level variations driven by the astronomical O1 tide, indicating an amplitude intensification of ∼$4\times {10}^{-3}$ (∼$5\times {10}^{-3}$) and an azimuthal angle increment of ∼$3^{\circ }$ ( ∼$9^{\circ }$), in correspondence to a 1 cm sea level increase.

Lake Albano is a monomictic volcanic crater lake in Central Italy with CO₂-rich waters presenting CO₂ concentration varying over time. Depending on the period of the year, the lake is characterized by strong stratification or rather overturning events. In the warm season, the heating of the surface water results in a highly stratified vertical density profile, while in the cold season, the surface water cooling leads to a potential vertical instability of the water column. In this case, a partial/deep overturning of the lake water column may occur with the degassing in the atmosphere of the CO₂ which was accumulated as dissolved species in the deep water layers following seismically induced gas recharge, months to years before. Such a process has been periodically observed in Lake Albano in the past and could pose a potential hazard to the surrounding environment and population. A 3D numerical model is implemented to investigate the lake dynamics and the occurrence of overturning events. The model is validated and calibrated using both historical observations and measurements acquired during this study. These include temperature and salinity profiles from the deepest central portion of the lake, surface water temperature time series recorded by sensors installed on the lake shores, mounted on remotely operated vehicles, and on low-cost, innovative, self-powered drifting buoys. The latter have also been used to assess the modeled surface circulation of the lake.