New Breakwater for the Port Of Genoa – Sampierdarena Basin

The technical and economic feasibility project of the new breakwater of the Port of Genoa is structured in two phases: a first phase which identifies and examines the possible alternative design solutions and a second phase which, solely for the selected solution, envisages the development of the technical and economic documents of the feasibility project.

Since the construction cost of the work exceeds 50 million, the public works legislation prescribes that the alternative solutions at the end of the first phase are discussed in a Public Consultation involving all the key-stakeholders.

This procedure became mandatory in Italy from 24/8/2018 with the issue of a Regulation which identified the subjects that define and control the Public Debate and the ways in which these subjects must operate have been defined. It is the first time that it has been applied in Italy.

The aim of the intervention is to create the conditions to guarantee safety conditions for port operations and the conditions for the development of the port of Genoa. In the first phase various study and investigation activities are foreseen, including: geophysical field surveys, identification of the project design vessel based on the evolution and the projections of the vessels in a period of time comparable to the technical life of the 'work (100 years), the study of meteorological, geological-geotechnical-seismic conditions, the study of hydrodynamics and sedimentological processes, the study of marine habitats and site archelogy.

In the first phase, once established mandatory project criteria in terms of navigation and operation at the docks, the possible intervention solutions are to be defined, within which the most promising ones are to be selected in relation above all to the costs, which represent a reference element for the economic sustainability of the work.

On such selected solutions, detailed analyses are to be conducted in terms of wave agitation within the port basins, navigation manoeuvres with real time simulator, hydrodynamic and sedimentological, environmental and landscape verification.

The Public Consultation will select the solution to be further analysed in the second phase at the level of the technical and economic feasibility project. In this phase, detailed geotechnical investigations are planned with the use of a DP2 type ship with suitable equipment for conducting surveys in the footprint area of the new breakwater. Physical model tests are also planned in the HR Wallingford hydraulic laboratory to optimize the construction type of the new breakwater.