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      Effects of a severe storm on seagrass meadows.

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          Abstract

          Extreme environmental events can strongly affect coastal marine ecosystems but are typically unpredictable. Reliable data on benthic community conditions before such events are rarely available, making it difficult to measure their effects. At the end of October 2018, a severe storm hit the Ligurian coast (NW Mediterranean) producing damages to coastal infrastructures. Thanks to recent data collected just before the event on two Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows hit by the storm, it has been possible to assess the impact of the event on one of the most valuable habitats of the Mediterranean Sea. By means of seagrass cover and depth data gathered along four depth transects positioned within the two meadows in areas differently exposed to the storm waves, and by using models (WW3® + SWAN + XBeach 1D) to evaluate wave height and bed shear stress, we showed that meadows experienced erosion and burial phenomena according to exposure. Paradoxically, meadows in good conditions suffered more damage as compared to those already suffering from previous local anthropogenic impacts. Besides the direct effect of waves in terms of plant uprooting, a major loss of P. oceanica was due to sediment burial in the deepest parts of the meadows. Overall, the loss of living P. oceanica cover amounted to about 50%. Considering that previous research showed that the loss of the original surface of P. oceanica meadows in 160 years due to anthropogenic pressures was similarly around 50%, the present study documented that an extreme environmental event can generate in a single day a loss of natural capital equal to that produced gradually by more than a century of human impact.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Sci Total Environ
          The Science of the total environment
          Elsevier BV
          1879-1026
          0048-9697
          Dec 15 2020
          : 748
          Affiliations
          [1 ] DiSTAV (Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences), University of Genoa, Corso Europa 26, I-16132 Genova, Italy; GeoScape Soc. Coop., Via Varese 2, I-16122 Genova, Italy. Electronic address: alice.oprandi@edu.unige.it.
          [2 ] DiSTAV (Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences), University of Genoa, Corso Europa 26, I-16132 Genova, Italy; GeoScape Soc. Coop., Via Varese 2, I-16122 Genova, Italy.
          [3 ] DiCCA (Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering), University of Genoa, Via Montallegro 1, I-16145 Genova, Italy.
          [4 ] DiSTAV (Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences), University of Genoa, Corso Europa 26, I-16132 Genova, Italy.
          Article
          S0048-9697(20)34902-0
          10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141373
          32805568
          650e9b4d-da4e-4f5d-9a07-3f50bfe932d7
          Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
          History

          Model chain,Posidonia oceanica,Severe storm,Biogeomorphology,Mediterranean Sea

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