Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the Special Issue on “Mediterranean Beach Morphodynamics under Climate Change” in Applied Sciences.

Climate change and an increasing human pressure on coastal areas are able to alter beach morphodynamics, potentially posing serious threats to the survival of beach systems that cannot accommodate these modifications. Low resilience levels are often the result of bad coastal management, which inhibits the natural ability of beaches to respond and recover from external forces. For instance, the valuable ecosystem services provided by seagrasses (e.g., Posidonia sp.) have only recently been acknowledged by coastal managers and stakeholders. This is of paramount concern in Mediterranean coastal areas and other regions worldwide, for instance, Western Australia, where the presence of the meadow outlines similar benthic habitats. The great value for coastal communities of these fragile systems highlights the importance of assessing their resilience in order to evaluate the impact of natural hazards and the identification of mitigation strategies. In this context, it is essential to set up monitoring systems that are able to provide tracking, understanding, and potentially, predictions related to short- and long-term beach dynamics and their forcing mechanisms.

This Special Issue of the journal Applied Sciences, “Mediterranean Beach Morphodynamics under Climate Change”, aims to collect contributions devoted to beach monitoring programs and coastal risk assessment. The focus is on wave-dominated Mediterranean shores and similar worldwide environments characterized by the presence of seagrass meadows in the nearshore, their forcing mechanisms and responses. Contributions that integrate different data collection and analysis approaches (for instance combined measurements and modeling) are particularly welcome.

The main topics covered in this Special Issue are:

• Beach measurements and monitoring programs;
• Climate change impacts and adaptation;
• Health system assessment through bioindicators;
• Ecosystem services;
• Operational systems;
• Beach evolution under climate change;
• Coastal risk assessment and prediction;
• Human pressure on coastal systems;
• Combined remote and in situ measurements;
• Combined measurements and numerical modeling.

Prof. Dr. Sandro De Muro
Dr. Andrea Ruju
Dr. Carla Buosi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• beach morphodynamics
• monitoring programs
• climate change
• coastal resilience
• coastal management
• ecosystem services