Coastal Processes along the Ebro, Po and Rhone Deltas  <B>Coastal Processes along the Ebro, Po and Rhone Deltas</B><P>J.A. Jimenez1, M. Capobianco2, S. Suanez3, P. Ruol4, P.Fraunie5, M.J.F. Stive6</B><I><P> 1 Laboratorie d'Enginyeria Maritima, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain 2 R&D Environment, Tecnomare SpA, Italy <BR> 3 Universite de Provence, France <BR> 4 Universita di Padova, Italy <BR> 5 Universite de Toulon et du Var, France <BR> 6 Netherlands Centre for Coastal Research , Delft Hydraulics, The Netherlands </I><P> Abstract<P> The physical functioning of the deltaic plains and of the coastal fringes of the Ebro, Po and Rhone Deltas is known to be fundamentally based on the same kind of constituent processes. This knowledge, however, is rather more qualitative than quantitative specially as far as the complexity of the spatial distribution is concerned. One of the objectives of the MEDDELT project is to define a methodology for the analysis of the deltaic functioning and to give a first quantitative assessment of deltaic plain processes on the one hand and to the coastal fringe processes on the other for these three Mediterranean Deltas. The present work, by making reference to common aspects and to some particularities of the three deltas, aims to introduce the approaches which are being undertaken to assess coastal fringe processes from a quantitative perspective and focusing on a hierarchy of scales.<P>