132 COASTAL DUNES ALONG THE MARCHE LITTORAL (ADRIATIC SIDE OF CENTRAL ITALY) Carlo Bisci 1 , Gino Cantalamessa 1 , Simona Casavecchia 2 , Mario Tramontana 3,4 , Federico Spagnoli 1,5,* 1 Università degli Studi di Camerino – Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie e-mail: carlo.bisci@unicam.it 2 Università Politecnica delle Marche – Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Ambientali e-mail: s.casavecchia@staff.univpm.it 3 Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo – Dipartimento di Scienze Pure e Applicate e-mail: mario.tramontana@uniurb.it 4 CoNISMa, Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze del Mare, piazzale Flaminio, 9 00196 Roma 5 IRBIM-CNR Ancona e-mail: federico.spagnoli@cnr.it * Corresponding author Abstract – An analysis of the main features of relict dunes and scarcely anthropized zones located along the littoral of the Marche Region is reported. The coast is strongly affected by man-made transformations mostly implemented from the ‘60s of the previous century to face beach erosion triggered by a reduction of river solid load derived from man-made interventions in the hydrographic basins. Presently, no real beach-dune still exists, but, locally, some eroded remnants can be found. The typical vegetation of dunes is very fragmented, depleted and strongly altered. Standing their extremely relevant ecologic function, it is instrumental to carry out actions aiming at preserving these relict dunal areas. Introduction The coastline of Marche Region (Adriatic side of Central Italy) [1, 2, 3] is mainly represented by sandy and/or gravelly beaches (about 150 km of 172 km). After irregular alternances of progradation and retreat phases directly driven by climate up to about 2 millennia ago and then by agricultural activity (in turn, strongly influenced by climate conditions), the studied sector has been strongly affected by man-made transformations and presently shows an almost continuous series of coastal protection works: emerged and submerged breakwaters, seawalls, groynes and revetments. Moreover, harbor structures and channelized outlets locally interrupts the lateral continuity of the shoreline. Such interventions were mostly implemented starting from the ‘60s of the last century to face beach erosion phenomena triggered by a dramatic reduction of river solid load. The latter, in turn, derived from man-made interventions in the hydrographic basins, such as construction of dams and check dams, gravel quarrying from the thalwegs, crops abandonment etc. Unfortunately, the lack of territorial planning for coastal intervention projects instead of solving the problem of shore retreat mostly brought to downdrift migration of erosional phenomena, thus requiring further interventions: in this way, almost all the regional shoreline was progressively artificially stiffened. Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup_referee_list) FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Carlo Bisci, Gino Cantalamessa, Simona Casavecchia, Mario Tramontana, Federico Spagnoli, Coastal dunes along the Marche littoral (Adriatic side of central Italy), pp. 132-145 © 2022 Author(s), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, 10.36253/979-12-215-0030-1.12