Storm Surge Simulations in the Adriatic Sea

A storm surge prediction model has been constructed for simulating seven historical storms in the Adriatic Sea. The storm which could cause the highest surge levels at the Ravenna coast has been chosen as a reference storm for studying the combined effects on this area of various regional topographical changes, sea-level rises and future storm events. These future storm events have been generated by increasing the wind intensity of the chosen weather pattern. Storm surges have been simulated with the scenarios obtained from various combinations of the bathymetry changes and different wind intensities. Wind intensity has been found to have the most significant influence on the storm surge levels in the future. Topographic changes due to land subsidence and due to sea-level rise have very minor influences on the net surge residuals in the future. Due to the bathymetric nature of the Adriatic Sea, the surge residual can be slightly lower by increasing the water depth (e.g. due to sea-level rise) in the Northern Adriatic.

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