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Rockfalls monitoring along eastern coastal cliffs
of the Favignana island (Egadi, Sicilia):
preliminary remarks

Luca Falconi, Alessandro Peloso, Claudio Puglisi, Augusto Screpanti, Angelo
Tatì, Vladimiro Verrubbi

ENEA, National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Develop-
ment. Via Anguillarese, 301, 00123 Roma, Italy

Favignana island is a historical and environmental attraction site frequented by
tourists during the long warm season of the year. For several centuries the calcare-
ous sandstone outcropping in the east side of the island has been extracted and
used as building stone. Actually the quarries and the caves are undergoing to ero-
sional and gravitational processes that are influencing the touristic use. As well as
putting at risk the safety of people attending the area, the diffused rock falls are
likely to jeopardize sites of great anthropological value that, once destroyed, can
no longer be reconstructed. An integrated monitoring project of the cliffs is aimed
to identify the most active areas and to provide support to the local government's
policies in the implementation of mitigation measures. If adequate measures will
be taken in the future, operators and users of the tourist circuit will have the op-
portunity to enjoy these amazing areas with lower level of landslide risk.

Keywords: rock fall, monitoring, Favignana, Sicily

1. Introduction

In the Favignana island outcrops a quaternary calcareous sandstone, improperly
called as tuff. Its good resistance brought this rock to be extracted and used as
building stone. The exploitation of the Favignana sandstone is ancient, but it was
mainly in the period between 1700 and 1950 that reached its maximum
development. Many buildings were constructed in Tunis with the “tuff” of
Favignana and Messina was rebuilt with it after the earthquake of year 1908. After
the II world war the “tuff” has gone out of the market and the mining areas have
been abandoned to a degradation process which increased the risk of walls
collapse. Among the quarry areas there are also the high cliffs overlooking the sea
situated along many parts of the eastern coast.
The landslides along these rock slopes, often highly fractured and exposed to the
intense activity of aggressive exogenous agents, occur mainly with the detachment