The Coastal Sustainability Standard method: A case study in Calabria (Southern Italy)

Coastal regions and river basins hold a great variety of geological, ecological, social and economic roles mutually dependent and interacting. So, a global approach of these sensitive and transitional areas should include their seaward and landward sides. By this way, the Organization of United Nations has suggested a new management pattern of littoral zones named Integrated Coastal Area and River basin Management, able to merge, into the same landscape unit, marine, coastal and riverine systems. However, in italian seaboard areas, there is a total lack of an overall strategy to carry out national and/or regional plans for a sustainable development of coastal regions. In this regard, also in the Calabria region (Southern Italy) the suggested new kind of holistic approach is totally neglected although its coastline shows a broad extent of 715 km and the hydrographic network is made up by 1003 catchments forming a complex drainage system. This new kind of coastal management was verified through the application of a Coastal Sustainability Standard method applied, for the first time in Italy, in a study area in the western seaside of Calabria. The results of the field survey highlight a total failure of an inclusive coastal management process capable to realize a comprehensive landscape planning of marine, coastal and riverine systems. Instead, Calabria could be the leader coastal region in Italy where landward and seaward sides could be connected along the ecological corridors of their river basins.