Rockfalls monitoring along eastern coastal cliffs of the Favignana Island (Egadi, Sicily): Preliminary remarks

Favignana island (Sicily, Italy) is a historical and environmental attraction site frequented by tourists during the long warm season of the year. For several centuries the calcareous sandstone outcropping in the east side of the island has been extracted and used as building stone. Actually the quarries and the caves are undergoing to erosional and gravitational processes that are influencing the touristic use. As well as putting at risk the safety of people attending the area, the diffused rock falls are likely to jeopardize sites of great anthropological value that, once destroyed, can no longer be reconstructed. An integrated monitoring project of the cliffs is aimed to identify the most active areas and to provide support to the local government’s policies in the implementation of mitigation measures. If adequate measures will be taken in the future, operators and users of the tourist circuit will have the opportunity to enjoy these amazing areas with lower level of landslide risk. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.