Dear Colleagues,

The main scope of this Special Issue (SI) of Sustainability is to explore and evaluate both innovative and long-validated approaches applied for the hydrostratigrapic and geochemical characterization of coastal areas.

As is already well known, the sustainable development and management of coastal plains has received significant attention worldwide during the last few decades. Coastal areas and coastal plains are suffering the adverse consequences of hazards related to geological processes, climate change, and sea-level rise. The impact is worsened by increasing human-induced pressure due to land-use and hydrological changes, including reclamation works, embankments, dams, and overexploitation of groundwater. In most Mediterranean coastal areas, one of the main problems associated to governance is the overexploitation of groundwater to meet the growing population demand which increases the effect of salinization processes, subsidence, and/or flood damages. In fact, many coastal plains worldwide are affected by land subsidence phenomena, which often involve inhabited areas, causing conspicuous economic costs.

Specifically, this Special Issue aims to provide an opportunity to gather and promote peer-reviewed studies utilizing multidisciplinary geological and geochemical approaches in terms of hydrostratigraphy, water and gas geochemistry, isotopic composition, and both classical and geostatistical elaboration of major and trace constituents (including toxic elements such as Cr, Ni, As, Cd, and Hg), and study of ground subsidence- and groundwater-related problems, including numerical modelling experience.

The mean goal of this Special Issue is to cover, without being limited to the following areas:

• Sedimentology and Stratigraphy of late Pleistocene–Holocene coastal plains;
• Hydrostratigraphic framework reconstruction;
• Hydrogeological modeling;
• Hydrogeochemical characterization: sampling techniques of water and gas, new and/or standard analytical methods for trace elements and elaboration approaches;
• Geostatistical analysis;
• Stable and radioactive isotopes studies;
• Environmental issues/impacts (also due to harmful levels of trace elements) linked to water resource exploitation and management;
• Geochemical modeling;
• Analysis of ground deformation by means of satellite remote sensing and subsidence assessment.

Dr. Maurizio Polemio
Prof. Rosanna De Rosa
Dr. Carmine Apollaro
Dr. Rocco Dominici
Dr. Giovanni Vespasiano
Dr. Giuseppe Cianflone
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• coastal plain stratigraphy
• hydrostratigraphic framework
• hydrogeological modeling
• hydrogeochemical characterization
• geostatistical approach
• stable and radioactive isotopes
• major, trace, and toxic elements
• residence time of water
• heavy metal distribution
• water exploitation and management
• environmental issues in coastal areas
• land subsidence
• remote sensing