Mapping decadal land cover dynamics in Sicily's coastal regions.

Coastal zones are dynamic interfaces shaped by the interplay of Land Cover (LC) and Land Use (LU), influenced by both natural processes and anthropogenic activities. Grasping the historical shifts in land is essential for safeguarding coastal benefits such as defense mechanisms, biodiversity conservation, and recreational spaces, alongside enhancing their management. LC and LU products offer a valuable option for monitoring urban development, vegetation coverage, and dry-beach areas.

Demonstrating the value of beaches for adaptation to future coastal flood risk.

Cost-effective coastal flood adaptation requires a realistic valuation of losses, costs and benefits considering the uncertainty of future flood projections and limited resources for adaptation. Here we present an approach to quantify the flood protection benefits of beaches accounting for the dynamic interaction of storm erosion, long-term shoreline evolution and flooding. We apply the method in Narrabeen-Collaroy (Australia) considering uncertainty in different shared socioeconomic pathways, sea-level rise projections, and beach conditions.

Assessing the effects of using high-quality data and high-resolution models in valuing flood protection services of mangroves.

The rate of change on coastlines is accelerating from climate change and coastal development. Coastal flooding is a particularly pressing and increasing problem, which affects hundreds of millions of people and damages trillions of US$ in property. Scientists, practitioners and managers must be able to quickly assess flood risk and identify appropriate adaptation and risk reduction measures often with limited data and tools, particularly in developing countries.

Microalgae as a safe food source for animals: nutritional characteristics of the acidophilic microalga .

Background: Edible microalgae are marine or fresh water mesophilic species. Although the harvesting of microalgae offers an abundance of opportunities to the food and pharmaceutical industries, the possibility to use extremophilic microalgae as a food source for animals is not well-documented.

Objective: We studied the effects of dietary supplementation of a powdered form of the acidophilic microalga on growth and health parameters of laboratory rats.