Project Description:
Shifting Sands is a citizen science initiative based near the mouth of the Tiber River in Fiumicino, Italy, led by Rizomi.Lab representing the inclusive sailing community Mujeres in Mare, which includes women, LGBTQI+, and refugee participants. In collaboration with Ponentino ASD, Scienza Radicata, and a vast network of local stakeholders—students, environmental activists, fishermen, and institutions—the project involves 150 citizen scientists in collecting and analysing crucial data on seabed changes and siltation. These changes, linked to the big cruise port development, have raised serious environmental concerns. Through accessible training, participatory boat missions, data analysis, open-source mapping, and storytelling, Shifting Sands aims to fill a significant scientific gap and give local communities the tools to engage in informed public debate. By adopting a simple, replicable methodology, the project ensures communities can continue monitoring and advocating for sustainable coastal management well beyond its completion.
Project Type: Kick Starting
Theme: Public Trust, Education and Empowerment
Mentor: Karen Soacha
Tracking Change at the Tiber Mouth: The Shifting Sands Project
The Shifting Sands Project focuses on analysing the ongoing siltation of the bay of Isola Sacra in Fiumicino (Rome, Italy), located at the mouth of the Tiber River. After the construction of a breakwater barrier, the bay has become a sediment trap, transforming the landscape from a rocky deep coast to a sandy, shallow bay.
This area includes a Natura 2000–protected zone with rare marsh habitats. The breakwater, built in 2013, is part of a larger plan for a private cruise port. Such infrastructure would require constant dredging to maintain a seabed depth of at least 15 metres. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) does not fully address all concerns about this project’s impacts, and many scientific studies suggest that such development would negatively affect both habitats and local communities.
Shifting Sands aims to monitor the current depth of the bay through the active participation of the local community. The project develops a transparent, low-cost, replicable, and open—to—all—stakeholders benchmark bathymetric evaluation that delivers open-source data. By comparing new data with previous records, the project enables a quantitative assessment of the siltation rate and thus helps estimate the hypothetical dredging requirements of the proposed port. A second objective is to record residents’ perceptions of the ongoing environmental changes.
Rizomi Lab, Ponentino ASD, and Scienza Radicata promote the project. Ponentino ASD is a sailing association. Rizomi Lab is a non-profit organisation supporting local communities in social initiatives, such as “Mujeres in Mare” (Women at Sea), which is currently the main actor of Shifting Sands. Scienza Radicata is an informal scientific association advocating collective science, environmental justice, and ecological knowledge
Activities carried out during the project include: monitoring from boats using both commercial echosounders and homemade instruments; coastline monitoring with GPS devices; interviews with residents; and public community events.
The monitoring involves collecting coordinate points and corresponding bathymetric data—using both echo sounders and a hand-lead line to compare the accuracy of different methods.
For coastline activities, groups walk along the shoreline, gathering GPS coordinates at fixed intervals using their own phones.
We also conducted video interviews with 12 residents to produce a final video raising awareness of the issues affecting the bay.
Shifting Sands enables the local community to collect reliable data and deepen its knowledge of the habitats. As one of our scientists, Stian (responsible for methodology and data analysis), said enthusiastically during an event:
”“I am so proud we are doing 100% science but 100% environmentalism struggle at the same time!”
Shifting Sands contributes to local efforts resisting speculative development and environmental degradation at the mouth of the Tiber River.
