Search results for "Littoral zone"
showing 10 items of 73 documents
Decadal evolution of coastline armouring along the Mediterranean Andalusia littoral (South of Spain)
2016
Abstract Emplacement of hard coastal defence structures, such as seawalls, revetments, groins and breakwaters, or even ports, harbours and marinas, is commonly known as coastline armouring. This paper deals with coastal armouring evolution along the 546 km Mediterranean coast of Andalusia (Spain). It is based on photo interpretation and GIS tools, which have been employed to map coastal structure emplacement and evolution by analysis of 1956, 1977, 2001 and 2010 aerial photos. Additionally the coefficient of infrastructural impact K , which represented the relation between the total length of maritime structures and the length of the study coastal section, was obtained - i.e. minimal at 0.0…
Socio-Ecological Contingencies with Climate Changes over the Prehistory in the Mediterranean Iberia
2020
International audience; We conducted palynological, sedimentological, and chronological analyses of a coastal sediment sequence to investigate landscape evolution and agropastoral practices in the Nao Cap region (Spain, Western Mediterranean) since the Holocene. The results allowed for a reconstruction of vegetation, fire, and erosion dynamics in the area, implicating the role of fire in vegetation turnover at 5300 (mesophilous forests replaced by sclerophyllous scrubs) and at 3200 calibrated before present (cal. BP) (more xerophytics). Cereal cultivation was apparent from the beginning of the record, during the Mid-Neolithic period. From 5300 to 3800 cal. BP, long-lasting soil erosion was …
Landscape Dynamics in Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Castelló de la Plana in the Last Hundred Years
2019
The littoral areas of the Mediterranean coastline have undergone a significant transformation due to their historical and intense human occupation. The result has been an evolution of different cultural landscape configurations, ranging from those with a marked agrarian character to artificial ones derived from the process of urbanisation and metropolitan growth. The objective of this paper is to define a model to characterise landscape types and units that explains the landscape dynamics (1910-2015) in Mediterranean coastal spaces at local scale, taking as study area the municipality and surroundings of Castelló de la Plana, in Spain. The aim is to identify the way in which society has app…
The Valencian coast (Western Mediterranean): Neotectonics and geomorphology
1996
Abstract An analysis of terrestrial and marine data has shown the coastal fringe of the emerged continent to be naturally divided into five distinct morphosedimentary sectors, whereas three clearly different large domains are visible in the submarine shelf. This geographic coastal space corresponds to an area of wide tectonic activity where the internal and external units of Betic Ranges meet, showing a morphological expression of the substratum structure. On the contrary, the continental shelf located to the North, in the Gulf of Valencia, is subsiding and has important accumulations of sediments as a consequence of the influence of units linked to the Iberic orogeny. The detailed analysis…
Red sky at night cyanobacteria delight: the role of climate in structuring phytoplankton assemblage in a shallow, Mediterranean lake (Biviere di Gela…
2009
The hypothesis that climate changes may strongly interfere with the peculiar hydrological patterns in the Mediterranean basin and alter the structure of the aquatic biota was tested in a shallow Sicilian lake. A phytoplankton survey, carried out monthly in the brackish and shallow Biviere di Gela, in 2005–2007, revealed a transformation in the structure of its phytoplankton assemblage as compared with similar data collected in 1987–1988. An analysis of the trends followed by precipitation and temperature over the last 40 years, showed reduced water inflows, due to increased air temperature and evapotranspiration rather than to a decrease in the amount of precipitation. A consequent reductio…
Coastal Evolution in a Mediterranean Microtidal Zone: Mid to Late Holocene Natural Dynamics and Human Management of the Castellò Lagoon, NE Spain
2016
We present a palaeoenvironmental study of the Castelló lagoon (NE Spain), an important archive for understanding long-term interactions between dynamic littoral ecosystems and human management. Combining geochemistry, mineralogy, ostracods, diatoms, pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal and archaeo-historical datasets we reconstruct: 1) the transition of the lagoon from a marine to a marginal environment between ~3150 cal BC to the 17th century AD; 2) fluctuations in salinity; and 3) natural and anthropogenic forces contributing to these changes. From the Late Neolithic to the Medieval period the lagoon ecosystem was driven by changing marine influence and the land was mainly exploited …
Littoral Demosponges from the Banks of the Strait of Sicily and the Alboran Sea
1987
The material of this study has been collected from the South-Western Mediterranean in the course of two expeditions by the Italian Research Vessel “Bannock”. The primary collection method employed was SCUBA diving. The sampled area is affected by an important inflow of water from the Atlantic. Fifty-nine species have been studied. One of them, Stylostichon equiosculatus, is new to science. Some ecological considerations are also discussed.
Biochronological and paleoenvironmental interest of foraminifera lived in restricted environments: application to the study of the western Mediterran…
2002
As a consequence ofthe Flandrian transgression, numerous littoral lakes were f since roughly 6000 BP in the western Mediterranean coast. This kind of environment is colonized, among other groups, by specialized forms of foraminifera. Some species arose in the Upper Tertiary, some others in the Pleistocene and others are exclusively Holocene. Two kinds ofenvironment are proposed in the colonization: one with very low salinity waters where agglutinated test species prevail and another one with brackish waters, dominated by calcareous test species. In addition, Trichohyalus aguayoi can be considered as an acmezone within the Holocene. We propose a cenozone formed by the following assemblage: A…
Microbial communities of the Mediterranean rocky shore: ecology and biotechnological potential of the sea‐land transition
2019
Microbial communities from harsh environments hold great promise as sources of biotechnologically relevant strains and compounds. In the present work, we have characterized the microorganisms from the supralittoral and splash zone in three different rocky locations of the Western Mediterranean coast, a tough environment characterized by high levels of irradiation and large temperature and salinity fluctuations. We have retrieved a complete view of the ecology and functional aspects of these communities and assessed the biotechnological potential of the cultivable microorganisms. All three locations displayed very similar taxonomic profiles, with the genus Rubrobacter and the families Xenoco…
Meiobenthic naidid and aeolosomatid oligochaetes from the profundal zone, and relations of species to eutrophication
1989
Oligochaetes were sampled using meiobenthos methods from depths of between 20 and 94 m in Lake Paijanne in 1986. Individuals belonging to several species of the Naididae and Aeolosomatidae, which are generally considered to include mainly littoral or lotic species, were found more or less regularly at these profundal depths. The naidid species Chaetogaster langi and Arnphichaeta leydigii were more abundant in the deepest areas than at 20 m. Species also appeared to react differently to water quality. The naidid species Chaetogaster langi and the aeolosomatid species Aeolosoma quaternarium, A. hernprichi and Rheomorpha neiswestnovae were most abundant on average at oligotrophic, unpolluted s…