In the f
ramewo
rk of the Ita
lian f
lagship P
roject RITMARE, du
ring Decembe
r 2013 a meteo-oceanog
raphic station was insta
lled in the Ma
r G
rande basin, a semi-enc
losed bay in Southe
rn Ita
ly, connected to the Ionian Sea. Due to the p
resence of coasta
l heavy indust
ry and anth
ropic p
ressu
re, this ma
rine system has expe
rienced envi
ronmenta
l deg
radation ove
r the
last decades. The
refo
re, much monito
ring of hyd
rodynamics and wate
r qua
lity indicato
rs is
requi
red. In fact, this monito
ring makes it possib
le to check the
rea
l-time biochemica
l status of the basin and the
refo
re p
rompt
ly inte
rvene when accidenta
l spi
lls occu
r, and to c
reate a dataset necessa
ry to ca
lib
rate and va
lidate mode
lling systems p
roviding fo
recasts. The p
resent pape
r aims to ana
lyze and discuss the
long te
rm and continuous
reco
rdings of hyd
rodynamic and biochemica
l data co
llected by this station, avai
lab
le fo
r the pe
riod f
rom Janua
ry 2014 up to Decembe
r 2014. In detai
l, hou
rly measu
rements of wind, waves, cu
rrent ve
locity, wate
r tempe
ratu
re, sa
linity, ch
lo
rophy
ll and tu
rbidity concent
rations we
re a
rchived in month
ly time-se
ries and p
rocessed in f
requency domain, using the FFT (Fast Fou
rie
r T
ransfo
rm), to both de
lineate the
recip
roca
l effects of d
rive
rs and deduce some co
rre
lations between pa
ramete
rs (
De Serio and Mossa, 2013). Fo
llowing this, month
ly su
rface cu
rrent data we
re p
rocessed in o
rde
r to obtain time-ave
raged va
lues of the tu
rbu
lent ve
locity components, tu
rbu
lent kinetic ene
rgy and tu
rbu
lent time sca
les. Based on these ca
lcu
lated tu
rbu
lent pa
ramete
rs, the ho
rizonta
l eddy diffusivity was computed with the hypothesis of homogeneous tu
rbu
lence using two methods, which p
rovided
resu
lts with the same o
rde
r of magnitude. These
resu
lts a
re of inte
rest fo
r nume
rica
l dispe
rsion mode
ls.
Finally, only referring to the month of December 2014, the time series of the crude oil concentration was available at the station and was examined in depth. The field data enabled us to conclude that the crude oil dispersion process is influenced by the sea turbulence.