Coastal Erosion: The Blue Flag Beaches at Risk of Disappearing

The 257 Blue Flags awarded in 2026 by FEE (the Foundation for Environmental Education) certify clean water, good facilities and environmental management at 525 Italian beaches. But an award built on the quality of a stretch of coast only makes sense if that coast is still physically there. Legambiente's "Spiagge 2026" report, produced with its Cities and Climate Observatory and released in late July 2026, together with the Italian Geographical Society's 17th "Sunken Landscapes" report, uses updated ISPRA data to paint, for the first time in this much detail, a picture of how fast Italy's coastline is already retreating — and how much of it will be left in a few decades. Regional deep-dives on Basilicata, Molise and Tuscany published in the past few weeks add local detail to national figures that, read alongside the map of Blue Flag beaches, reveal an overlap worth a closer look.

The "Spiagge 2026" report: erosion by the numbers

Between 2010 and 2026, Legambiente's Cities and Climate Observatory logged 1,073 weather- and water-related events in Italy's coastal municipalities: 404 flash floods from intense rainfall, 286 cases of storm-force wind and tornado damage, and 107 storm-surge events, on top of river flooding, landslides, hailstorms and prolonged drought. These events were concentrated in 308 of Italy's 643 coastal municipalities — 47.9% of the total, meaning almost one coastal town in two has already suffered direct climate damage. The sharpest trend is the trajectory: storm-surge damage rose 550% between 2022 and 2026, and wind damage rose 80%. On the structural side, ISPRA estimates that Italy has lost more than 40 million square metres of beach over the past fifty years; what's left today covers just 120 km² in total — only 41% of Italy's 8,300-plus km of coastline, with an average beach depth of just 35 metres.

Basilicata, Molise and Tuscany: three regions, three very different pictures

Regional ISPRA figures behind the recent deep-dive reports show that the share of coastline in erosion doesn't always track with the number of extreme events on record. Basilicata holds the grim national record: 51.6% of its 41 km of low-lying coast is eroded, despite only 11 recorded weather events since 2010 — a sign of structural fragility in the coastline itself rather than a high frequency of extreme events. Molise, with just 32 km of low-lying coast, shows 32% erosion despite only 4 recorded events, the lowest event count of any Italian region. Tuscany flips the pattern: across 289 km of low-lying coast, erosion sits at just 13.8%, among the lowest in the country, yet Tuscan coastal towns have logged 88 extreme weather events since 2010 — as many as Campania, and more than Sardinia.

Blue Flag and erosion: a risk that reaches award-winning coasts too

Legambiente's report doesn't mention Blue Flag beaches directly, but the numbers invite an obvious comparison. Of the 257 Blue Flags awarded in 2026, most are concentrated in Liguria (35 towns), Puglia and Calabria (27 each), the Marche, Campania and Tuscany (20 each), Sardinia (17) and Sicily (16). Puglia and Calabria — the third and second most-awarded regions — also rank among the most exposed to extreme weather in Legambiente's count (136 and 104 events since 2010, the highest totals after Sicily) and show erosion rates that are far from negligible (14.1% and 26.2%). Basilicata, where erosion affects 51.6% of the coast, still holds 5 Blue Flags; Molise, at 32% erosion, holds 2. A Blue Flag certifies water quality and service management for a given year — it says nothing about whether the sand those services sit on will still be there next season.

The outlook for 2050 and 2100, according to "Sunken Landscapes"

The Italian Geographical Society's 17th report, produced with input from Legambiente's Coastal Landscapes Observatory, cross-references ISPRA's geodatabase of Italian beaches with sea-level rise projections from Vousdoukas et al. (2020, RCP 4.5 scenario). Its starting point is the same ISPRA figure (2021) cited in the Legambiente report: roughly 18% of Italy's low-lying coast had already eroded between 2006 and 2019. Projecting forward under the median scenario, by 2050 around 70% of Italian beaches will be in erosion, and 20% of their current surface area faces near-total submersion (a loss of more than three-quarters of their width). By 2100, the share in erosion holds steady around 70%, but the share at risk of near-total submersion climbs to 45%. Sardinia and Friuli-Venezia Giulia are hit earliest, with a third or more of their beaches already at risk by 2050; by 2100 the picture worsens everywhere, peaking at 70% in Sardinia, 59% in Lazio and 57% in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The report also estimates that 6% of Italy's coastal municipalities, concentrated mostly in Sardinia and Liguria, risk losing more than 95% of their beaches to submersion as early as 2050.

What can be done to slow erosion

Both studies converge on one point: traditional hard defences — breakwaters, groynes, retaining walls — tend to shift the problem rather than solve it, worsening erosion on adjacent stretches of coast over the medium-to-long term. The authors of "Sunken Landscapes" point to managed realignment and retreat strategies, along with renaturalisation projects, as preferable alternatives, while Legambiente's report stresses the value of leaving Posidonia oceanica seagrass wrack and other beach-cast plant material in place — already present, at least partially, on 53% of Italian beaches — since it acts as a natural buffer against storm surges, even at the cost of looking less pristine during peak season. For Blue Flag towns, this adds a further layer on top of the water-quality and environmental-management criteria FEE already requires: keeping the award in years to come may increasingly depend on investing in the physical survival of the beach itself.