Changes of Significant Wave Height, Energy Period and Wave Power in Italy in the Period 1979-2018

An analysis of a 40-year long wave time series was performed, along the coasts of Italy, in order to identify ongoing trends of two synthetic parameters, significant wave height (Hs) and energy period (Te), and of the wave power (P). First, wave data were deduced from the global atmospheric reanalysis ERA-INTERIM by the ECMWF and checked to verify their consistency. Then, a trend analysis was performed on mean values evaluated at annual and seasonal scales through the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test for three different significance levels equal to 90%, 95% and 99%. The obtained results could be useful for analyses linked to beach morphodynamics and on the identification of field installations of Wave Energy Converters (WECs).