Community | September 21, 2009 | 13 comments

Floodgates might not save Venice

source: http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/40506

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JanforGore
The construction of mobile floodgates aims to safeguard the 1,300-year-old island city of Venice. It's an ambitious engineering project, but some scientists say it may not be sufficient to protect Venice from rising sea levels due to climate change.

Venice rose from mudflats in the middle of a lagoon which forms the largest wetland in the Mediterranean. One of the world's most endangered cities, it has been subject to increasing flooding due to sinking land — but also to rising sea levels.

It's known as "aqua alta" — high water — and it brings city life to a standstill for several hours. Big boats can't go under low-hanging bridges, and water seeps into buildings through the sewage system. Venetians have not lived on the ground floor for decades.

The project acronym is MOSE, which is also the Italian word for Moses, recalling the biblical parting of the sea.

Once completed in 2014, there will be 78 large, mobile flood gates at the three inlets. When not in use, they will sit on the lagoon bed. When a high tide is forecast, Zambardi says, the gates will rise and shut off the sea from the lagoon.

But the project, which is 54 percent completed, has been hounded by controversy and, critics say, may already be outdated.

Article continues:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112995748&ft=1&f=10...
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Current Tonight,   Earth and Science,   1 more
  2. tags:
    Culture,  Climate Change,  History,  Floods,  2 more
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13 comments // Floodgates might not save Venice

  • andeeandee
  • NeutronActivation
    • 0
      NeutronActivation  

    • The Netherlands is in the same boat so to speak. They have started to come to the realization that they may have to return some of the land they have reclaimed from the sea because it may become too expensive to protect in the future.

      The longest running sea-level measurements are recorded at Amsterdam most of which lies between 7 and 18 feet below sea level. Records from 1700 onwards can be found at http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/longrecords/longrecords.html. Since 1850, a rise of approx 1.5 mm/year is shown.

    • 2 years ago
  • futuregen
    • 0
      futuregen  
    • Image

    • Timely post JanforGore. Thanks for the info. Just posted the continuation of the article to get the picture. From the rest of the article:

      "The IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — has forecast a sea level rise by the end of this century of between 18 and 59 centimeters. But scientists caution it could be even higher.

      An Ecosystem In Danger

      Marine scientist Laura Carbognin has been studying the Venetian lagoon for decades. Like many scientists, she fears rising sea levels could mean the floodgates will be closed often and for long periods. That would upset the vital exchange between the sea and the lagoon, suffocating its delicate ecosystem.

      Carbognin co-authored a report that suggests another radical solution: "To complement the Moses solution, it is necessary that all the city is uplifted."

      She says research already suggests the feasibility of raising Venice.

      "Based on hydrological and geochemical data, the preliminary simulation shows that fluid injection into deep formation can uniformly raise Venice up to 30 centimeters over 10 years," Carbognin says.

      Carbognin hypothesizes the injections of salt water or even carbon dioxide at a depth of 600 to 800 meters below the lagoon, but she concedes much more research is needed.

      That would mean huge investments at a time when delays in state funding for the more-than-$6-billion MOSE has already substantially delayed the project's completion."

    • 2 years ago
  • nanac
    • 0
      nanac  

    • I really hope that all of the efforts made on Venice behalf, is successful......Italy is a very beautiful Country...I was there on vacation in June, and I had an amazing time..I went to Rome, however I plan to visit Venice in the future.

    • 2 years ago
  • Ogaal
  • J_Jammer
  • Maeveeo
  • SparkShark16
  • Kepano
    • 0
      Kepano  

    • This sounds like a tragedy waiting to flounder, no one can stop Mother Nature. Humans have over extended their boundaries and she is going to bitch slap everyone soon. Here in the Pacific many islanders are being forced off their lands that have been occupied for centuries also, but because of greed and over development no gates, or human intervention will stop many Pacific Islands being wiped off this planet. Thank You Imperialist and Big Businesses..

    • 2 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  

    • It's sad that the cities of the world that sit like Venice and New Orleans have government officials that ignore the problems for years and then they decide oh we have a problem.

      Good job Sherlock. Is it too late too fix?

      Maybe.

    • 2 years ago
  • Reaper26
  • veronaaa
  • JanforGore
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