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Conférence Méditerranéenne Côtière et Maritime
EDITION 3, FERRARA, ITALIA (2015)

Coastal and Maritime Mediterranean Conference
Disponible en ligne – http://www.paralia.fr – Available online

Sediment characterization of Favignana Harbour, Egadi
Island, Italy

Sergio CAPPUCCI 1, Floriana LAMARCA 2,
Massimo MAFFUCCI 1, Riccardo FERRANTINI 3

1 ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, 3 – 00123 Roma, Italy.
sergio.cappucci@enea.it

2. Dep. of Chemical Engineering, Materials & Environment, Univ of Rome "La
Sapienza", Italy. floriana.lamarca@uniroma1.it

3. Ergon Group S.r.l., Italy. riccardo.ferrantini@gmail.it

Abstract:
Italy is a country where multiple activities are located along the coast. Those activities
make the handling of marine sediments a topic of particular interest with high relevance
from the socio-economic point of view (sednet.org). In this paper the sediment
characterization of the Favignana Harbour (Egadi Archipelago) is presented by
describing the site-specific conceptual model of contamination and by referring the
results of analytical tests carried out on superficial sediment samples. Low level of
contamination was found but a potential source of contamination was relocated and an
innovative management option was implemented by using sediment to facilitate tourism
through creation of sport facilities on shore.
Keywords: Sediment characterization, Contamination, Conceptual modeling, Harbour.

1. Introduction
The Favignana Harbour (Fig. 1) is developed in the sheltered inlet of Cala Principale
(north central of Favignana Island). It is equipped with a pier about 110 m in length,
which extends to northwest. The smaller Molo S. Bernardo stretches for about 85
meters in a southerly direction. About 100 berths are available, 30 of which are
dedicated to boats of travellers/navigators. On the sea bottom of the Harbour the
Posidonia oceanica meadow is present and it is located within the Marine Protected
Area of Egadi Archipelago defined as "the buffer zone between the valuable natural
areas and external unprotected areas, where the activities of enjoyment and sustainable
use of the sea of low environmental impact are permitted". Frequent siltation of the
structure is due to the anticlockwise circulation inside the harbour generated during
mistral winds. The objectives of the present work are the description of the conceptual
model of potential sediment contamination within the Harbour, the identification of
contamination’s sources and determination of of contaminant’s concentration within
superficial sediments. Further investigation are in progress and some result on sediment
contamination, remediation technologies to be adopted, relative cost to be considered,

http://dx.doi.org/10.5150/cmcm.2015.026

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