Ports represent a very delicate anthropized environment and put the city and the open sea in contact, and therefore the protection of ports during maritime work activities is the first step in marine environmental protection. Monitoring maritime works for turbidity and dynamics allows limiting the possible leakage of contaminants, whether these are heavy metals, PAHs or microplastics. Still for the dynamics, the automatic control systems make it possible to keep under control the movement and berthing of ships and nautical vehicles in port areas. Even extreme environments (high depths and special sites such as the Blue Hole) are investigated for the search for microplastics and compared with decidedly more anthropized environments.

The main research topics are: 

1. Mycoremediation of port environments contaminated by heavy metals and IPA (M. Capello, S. Di Piazza, M. Zotti)
2. Environmental and physical monitoring, of works in the marine-maritime environment, for environmental protection (M. Capello)
3. Safety of navigation in port environments (M. Capello)
4. Study of the health of marine waters from the point of view of microplastics starting from different environmental matrices (water, sediment, biota) (M. Capello)
5. Research of microplastics in extreme environments: the deep depths of the Ligurian Sea and the Blue Hole of the Maldives Archipelago (M. Capello, M. Montefalcone)