The urban drainage system plays an important role in the urban infrastructure resilience discussion. Its functional failures can trigger cascading effects on other urban systems and critical infrastructures. The main aim of this work is to investigate and quantify urban flood resilience, offering an integrated methodological approach. In this process, the flooding consequences were quantified by hydrodynamic simulations, using a case study in an exploratory research method. A set of indicators was proposed to map the cascading effects generated by floods and the consequent quantification of urban flooding resilience. Two simulation scenarios were proposed to validate the methodological assessment framework proposed in this work. The first scenario represented the current flooding situation and showed the negative effects on the city systems resulting from disordered urban growth. The second scenario considered the improvement of the drainage behavior, considering a sustainable urban drainage approach supported by the concept of blue-green infrastructure integrated with the urban open spaces system. A comprehensive flood resilience assessment over time was conducted by analyzing the evolution of the System Integrity Index on both scenarios. The results showed that water dynamics play an important role in ordering land use and that preserving water spaces can efficiently respond to urban developing threats, dealing with floods in an earlier development moment, proving the importance of the drainage system as a preliminary structuring driver for supporting a sustainable urban planning, ordered according to environmental constraints defined by water dynamics.

Urban growth usually aggravates flooding problems, disrupting city life and requiring engineering works to ensure safety conditions to lower-lying city areas. Traditionally, canalization works were the preferred choice for flood mitigation. However, increased city growth limits the effectiveness of this approach due to the lack of free spaces. In addition, local canalization practices tend to transfer flooding downstream in a nonsustainable way. In the last 80 years, the town of Cittanova, in the province of Reggio Calabria, Italy, has been subjected to several flooding events related to river overflows or storm drain failures causing significant damages to mobility, households, and even to public safety. This paper focuses on the Forio Creek, which is a tributary of the Vacale River and runs through the city. The study was carried out using mathematical tools within a conceptual framework with the aim of mapping floods to prevent damage to the city and avoid future losses, thus reducing risks. MODCEL was the hydrodynamic model used to map urban floods and to support the use of the Flood Risk Index (FRI), which is a quantitative multicriteria tool relating flood levels to socioeconomic losses. Both the MODCEL and the FRI were previously available, but their combined use and the final integrated analyses carried in this paper introduce a simple and quantifiable flood risk procedure to identify present flood risks and foresee future scenarios while supporting alternative design and prioritizing flood control choices. This framework was applied to Cittanova and validated by practical observations.

During the second half of the last century, considerable anthropization processes were observed throughout most of the Italian territory. These processes have altered the equilibrium conditions of several river and coastal ecosystems, causing the destruction of numerous dune systems. This issue is particularly important in territories such as Calabria, a region in southern Italy subject to considerable anthropogenic pressures and characterized by over 700 km of coast. The aim of the paper was to evaluate the effects of anthropogenic pressures on the Calabrian dune systems, especially in regard to the triggering of coastal erosion processes. For this purpose, historical and current cartographic data, such as shapefiles, cartography, and satellite imagery, were analyzed using QGIS. This evaluation was carried out through the comparison between the current extension of the dune systems and their extensions after the Second World War, before the anthropogenic pressures. This evaluation was also carried out through the analysis of shoreline changes in coastal areas, where dune systems are currently present, and in coastal areas where dune systems have been partially or totally destroyed by anthropogenic causes, compared to the 1950s, thus excluding coastal areas without dune systems in the 1950s, and analyzing what was built in place of the destroyed dune systems. Two criteria were defined to identify the levels of destruction of the dune systems and to identify the coastal erosion processes. The analysis showed a strong correlation between the destruction of dune systems by anthropogenic causes and the triggering of coastal erosion processes.

Beach–dune system morphodynamics is probably one of the most classical coastal engineering problems. While the topic has been studied extensively and literature is plentiful of considerable research contributions, from the authors’ knowledge the subject is still challenging for coastal and environmental sciences. As a part of the Special Issue entitled “Beach–dune system morphodynamics” of this Journal, the present paper reviews traditional issues and design advances building bridges between potential risks and adaptation measures. The benefits of nature-based and hybrid solutions and the need for multidisciplinary studies and approaches to promote sustainable and resilient conservation of the coastal environment are emphasized. Considering the importance and complexity of the subject, this work cannot be fully complete. It is limited to providing a general overview and outlining some important directions intending to serve as a springboard for further research in the field of beach–dune system morphodynamics.