Evoluzione naturale ed impatto antropico sui sistemi costieri della Penisola del Sinis (Sardegna centro occidentale)

All over the world the coastal strip has suffered over the centuries the presence and the activities of the human beings: the historical needs of defending the countries from the invasions and to exploit natural resources for subsistence, have caused significant impacts on coastal environments, which now shows environmental changes hardly reversible. The Sardinia region despite having been affected more late from the effects of a fast economical and territorial development, shows noticeable mutations of the coastal strip, especially functional to a recreational and tourism use of the beaches and surrounding areas. The Sinis Peninsula, located along the central-western part of this region, despite having been historically characterized by a constant and important human presence (well represented in particular by the remains of the Nuragic native culture, but also of the Roman, Phoenician-Punic and Arabian), is often considered as one of the parts of Sardinia that has been only partially affected by modern human impacts. The need to understand how the presence and human activities may have worked on the present stage of the evolution of the coastal environments in the Sinis Peninsula, led to the development of the proposed research theme, whose main objective has been achieved through the integration of several research methods and themes. To achieve this result six representative Sinis Peninsula beach areas were studied through field laboratory and research activities. The first, primarily through a series of geomorphological, sedimentological and multi gave reliefs have allowed to determine the current status of the environments in study, both for the natural characteristics both for their direct interaction with the human activities. The latter mainly by means of historical photo interpretation, has allowed to assess the main changes that have occurred in the Sinis Peninsula in a specific time span, conceptually defined in this study as a period denominated Antropogene. The activities have been completed trough some corollary activities, which consist in the exam of some historical photographic documents, in the development of a expeditious geomorphological survey method and in the analysis of a particular environmental situation that occurred in one of the beaches in study. A final proposal for the development of an environmental index has permitted to achieve a satisfactory final result.