Coastal monitoring programme in the Gulf of Manfredonia (Southern Adriatic Sea): Preliminary results.

n the framework of the PITAGEM project a costal marine monitoring programme has been carried out in the Gulf of Manfredonia to know in real time and in near real time the marine coastal environmental conditions. The monitoring consisted of real time in situ oceanographic and atmospheric data recovery, performed by a multiparametric coastal buoy, and oceanographic measurements carried out by a coastal vessel. Collected data were stored in a data bank after a data quality check. The monitoring programme started in May 2002 and finished in April 2005. The data collected by the coastal monitoring programme were able to explain the seasonal water column changes and processes in function of meteorological, coastal morphology, continental input and general Adriatic Sea circulation forcing.