Venice has lost more ground in the last one hundred years than in the previous one thousand!!! Venice today sits 9 inches lower than it did at the start of the century.

Venice water levels of 31.5 inches or more were marked 111 days last year, frequently submerging St. Mark's and other low-lying landmarks.

Venice's historical flooding has been exacerbated by the dredging of the canals starting in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the pumping of water from local aquifers in the 1960s and '70s, and global warming.

Project "Moses", a row of 78 movable, underwater gates anchored to the floor of the Venetian lagoon, act like gigantic steel-and-concrete flippers and would rise whenever the Adriatic threatened to swamp the city.

"Moses" after more than 20 years of planning and controversy, has begun, and will cost $4.25 billion and will take eight years to complete.
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TIDE TURNS AGAINST VENICE

The City of Canals has long drawn its charm from its proximity to the sea, but rising waters are threatening to swamp its future.

By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer

July 19, 2003

VENICE, Italy -- "Dear old Venice has lost her complexion, her figure, her reputation, her self-respect; and yet, with it all, has so puzzlingly not lost a shred of her distinction."

— Henry James

Water has been Venice's source of life, and it could well spell its death.

In a few months, when the rains begin and the tide swells, this magically situated city will once again be under threat from the rising green waters of the Adriatic Sea.

For centuries the hub of a fabled maritime empire that rivaled the leading cities of the world, a diminished Venice today has lost half its population and relies on strangers for survival. For the estimated 12 million tourists who visit annually, a sloshy St. Mark's Square may seem folkloric, part of the fluid city's charm. But for residents and those who want to preserve Venice as a living city, the floods are disastrous.

Venice, it seems, is sinking faster than ever.

Poets and historians have long bemoaned Venice's decline — its perpetual existential crisis linked to centuries of nature's whims and rhythms, not to mention modernity's contribution: urbanization, industrialization, oil tankers and cruise ships.

But with alarming data that show the tide rising to dangerous levels with increasing frequency — the year 2002 was the worst on record since the calamitous deluge of 1966 — controlling the acqua alta has taken on fresh urgency.

Water levels of 31.5 inches or more were marked 111 days last year, frequently submerging St. Mark's and other low-lying landmarks. Between rising sea levels and dropping land levels, the city has lost more ground in the last century than in the previous millennium. Now, a debate over how to save the city once again surges, pitting environmentalists against big business against engineers, with the only agreement being that something must be done, and soon.

The newest scheme to hold back the sea is an ambitious, multibillion-dollar project that will construct 78 movable, underwater gates anchored to the floor of the Venetian lagoon. Like gigantic steel-and-concrete flippers or, perhaps, medieval drawbridges, the gates would rise whenever the Adriatic threatened to swamp the city, which is made up of scores of little islands.

Work began this summer after more than 20 years of planning and controversy.

Rather grandiosely named "Moses" after the biblical prophet who saved his people by parting the Red Sea, the project only recently received the all-important backing of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Moses, Berlusconi said as he inaugurated the project in May, "is the most important environmental protection measure in the world." Saving Venice, "this patrimony, this marvel, the pride of Italy," is among the government's top priorities, he said.

Environmentalists, however, charge that the Moses project is paddling up the wrong canal. It will further damage Venice's sensitive ecosystem of saltwater marshes and bird-friendly estuaries unique in the Mediterranean, they say, and it fails to address equally serious problems such as erosion and pollution.

"The central lagoon has been absolutely destroyed by erosion," said Paolo Cacciari, the city official in charge of environmental issues. "Venice is in danger, not from high waters but from the erosion. The smaller islands are being swallowed by the sea."

Floating behind the debate are competing visions of what kind of Venice will survive, if the City of Canals survives at all. Will Moses preserve the lagoon ecologically or merely make Venice safe for commerce and tourism?

The ravages of the acqua alta, Italian for "high water," are evident everywhere in this treasure-trove of exquisite architecture and priceless art. Thick, spongy algae covers lower walls facing the canals, concealing weakened foundations of proud Renaissance palaces. Doors often appear shortened because, in fact, the pavement has been raised to help keep the city above water; in other spots the sidewalks are buckled from erosion underneath.

When the moon, winds and barometric pressure align, and high tide is gathering apace, an alert goes out from Venice's Tidal Forecasting and Early Warning Center. Sixteen sirens all over the archipelago wail at regular intervals.

The residents know what to do. Shopkeepers pull merchandise from lower shelves, curators move paintings to higher ground. City teams deploy. Some lay miles of plank-like catwalks on stilts to allow walking above the water; others go to the homes of the elderly or disabled who will need special help.

As routine as some of this seems, it is anything but, residents say. Children can't get to school, adults can't go to work. Appointments are missed, dogs go unwalked, grocery shopping is deferred. If the water rises above a certain level, Venice's sleek, black gondolas and, more important, its fireboats, ambulances and water taxis cannot reach destinations because they can't pass under the bridges that link the city's many islands.

"Flooding paralyzes the city, and our life," Mayor Paolo Costa said in the ornate palazzo that serves as City Hall. "If it happens once a year, no problem. But if it happens 20 or 30 times a year, it makes us unreliable as a normal city.

"If you consider acqua alta as an attraction, fine, but that is Disneyland," he said. "And then Venice is not a city for people."

And the water that floods and then ebbs is not just water. The "dull green ooze of the receding deep," as Lord Byron put it two centuries ago, is dirty, salty and corrosive. It eats away at ancient brick and stone like a slow acid.

Francesca De Paul, a Venetian who works for the consortium that will build Moses, says residents are increasingly exasperated with having to fight the floods.

"I don't know anyone who thinks of this as fun," she said. "It's urgent we do something. The city cannot continue to be attacked."

All Venetians have knee-high rubber galoshes. But the flooding has gotten so bad, this year De Paul gave in and purchased hip-high boots.

Stefano Boato, a professor at Venice's Architecture University who specializes in urban planning of his unique city, is among those leading the fight against Moses. The protest so far has included, among other things, launching a small flotilla of boats into the lagoon on the day Berlusconi inaugurated the project.

The essence of the problem, as Boato sees it, is the depth of the canals. Starting in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the canals have been deepened to accommodate larger and larger sea craft, including military and commercial vessels, oil tankers and, more recently, Love Boat-style cruise ships.

Deeper canals altered the currents; more water enters the lagoon with greater force and then recedes, taking millions of tons of valuable sediment and further eroding the bed and the city's foundation, Boato says in his office, cluttered with maps and charts and tables.

Boato, Cacciari and others propose a much simpler and more affordable solution: Raise the level of the lagoon's bed and make the canals narrower and shallower. This, proponents say, will reduce the amount of water rushing in while promoting flushing of the lagoon, which cleanses it of pollution and sewage.

Between a rise in the level of the sea and a drop in the level of the land, Venice today sits 9 inches lower than it did at the start of the century, according to city data.

In addition to the phenomena caused by the deep canals, the pumping of water from local aquifers in the 1960s and '70s contributed to the sinking of the land, while some believe that global warming has exacerbated the rise in water levels.

Boato and other environmentalists are attempting to mount a legal challenge to the Moses construction. They allege conflict of interest because the consortium appointed by the government to study the problem and propose the solution also will execute it. Among the anomalies, the project is proceeding despite a negative environmental impact report. Politics and profit have outweighed science and ecology, Boato maintains.

The Consorzio Venezia Nuova is made up of some of the nation's leading engineering and construction firms. With the blessing of Berlusconi, Italy's extraordinarily powerful prime minister and the country's richest man, the Consorzio should have relatively smooth sailing, although parliamentary approval was required to launch construction.

The environmentalists acknowledge that they have an upstream battle against such formidable opponents.

"It's like fighting Fiat in Turin," Boato said.

Armed with slick brochures, video presentations and CD-ROMs, representatives of the consortium defend their work.

Maria Teresa Brotto, project engineer for Moses, says she and her colleagues have learned from the negative environmental impact report: They corrected the configuration and other technical features of the barriers, then ran their own environmental tests. "Impacts on the ecosystem will be negligible," she said. "This is the only solution that will solve definitively the problem of all the waters, the frequent ones and the exceptional ones."

The project will cost about $4.25 billion at current exchange rates and will take eight years to complete, its proponents say.

A row of 78 gates will be constructed at the three inlets where the tide rushes into Venice's lagoon: Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia. The gates will be filled with water and lie on the bed until tides of more than 3.6 feet are predicted; then, compressed air will be pushed into the barriers, raising them off the surface and into position to block the advancing sea.

Brotto predicts that this will be necessary on average five times a year, with the gates remaining upright for four or five hours each time. Activating them more frequently may interfere with shipping and the natural flushing of the lagoon.

But even Mayor Costa, who supports Moses, does not think that it will be enough. It will prevent the most cataclysmic floods, he says, but not the daily erosion that threatens not only precious monuments but also the very life of a city he longs to salvage, a city cherished for centuries as La Serenissima, the Most Serene.

The high tides, and the unhealthy dampness they give homes and buildings, have helped drive residents away from Venice. Most ground-floor apartments have been ruled uninhabitable. The city's population has been cut in half in the last 30 or 40 years to about 65,000 in the historic center, and with a sharp rise in real estate prices, many Americans and Germans are buying what ordinary Italians can no longer afford.

"Venice is a city of old people and foreigners," said Stefano Gasparini, a Venetian who drives a "water taxi," a speedboat that zips passengers through the canals at exorbitant prices.

Gasparini stands to benefit from the Moses project because the floods hurt his business. He shudders to remember last year, the worst since Nov. 4, 1966, when Venice choked under more than 6 feet of water. It took days for the water to subside and months for the region to recover. No one was killed, but damage was estimated at tens of millions of dollars, important artworks were ruined and the community was permanently traumatized.

Yet Gasparini is skeptical. He doesn't believe that Moses will work. Everything in Venice needs upkeep, he says, and when the authorities go to activate the complex systems of gates, the devices may have rusted or gotten bogged down by barnacles.

Still, Gasparini doesn't seem too worried.

"We're lucky to be in this beautiful city," he said, the Adriatic sparkling behind him, and, in front of him, workers raising the pavement stones on the edge of St. Mark's Square. "Even with the acqua alta."
 

Los Angeles Times: Tide Turns Against Venice
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/
la-fg-venice19jul19,1,314210.story?coll=la-home-leftrail