It rained heavily in Venice this weekend. Big deal! Rain is inevitable. Indeed! But combine the heavy rain with high tide and a strong Sirocco wind blowing off North Africa and Venice is quickly inundated under several feet of water – the infamous Acqua Alta or High Waters.

Yesterday’s flood was particularly intense, cresting at 1m40 or 4.5 feet before the waters began to recede. At that depth, you would need to swim to get through St. Mark’s Square.

The Venetians who still live in the city seem indifferent to it all. They have the appropriate barricades against the water on their doors and, when all else fails, they don their rubber boots and go about their business, cleaning up the ensuing mess as required.

Tourists, on the other hand, seem to think the flooding is an event to be experienced. They take off their shoes and wade through the salt water that covers Piazza San Marco. Some even go swimming when it is deep enough. You have to wonder what they are thinking. Apart from being very cold, the water is a maelström of garbage and debris not to mention having a high bacteria content. It may seem like a lark but this is deadly serious business.

Built on Alder poles driven into the muddy lagoon, Venice is a collection of about 124 islands inhabited starting in the 7^th century and gradually developing into the city we know today. Venetians have always had a number of strategies to defend their city from the sea either by building sea walls or even by diverting two major rivers.

They also developed a system of constructing their palazzos without fixed masonry (a feat of Medieval engineering) that allowed the buildings to move and adapt to the uneven settling of the ground beneath them. Or they built up the land to raise it above sea level. For example, there are at least five levels of stones beneath the existing Piazza San Marco.

A number of changes made to the lagoon in the 20^th century, however, made the city more vulnerable to flooding. For example, until the practice was halted in the 1970s, industrial plants on the mainland removed groundwater from Venice to use in their production cycle, causing the city to sink at an accelerated rate.

Deep channels were dug into the lagoon so the cruise liners and oil tankers, so detested by the Venetians, could be accommodated – but that is another story.

However, the main cause of flooding today is not so much that Venice is sinking (it is) but that sea levels are rising – the result of climate change.

The net effect is that the city floods more frequently and more severely. Although there has not been a flood as devastating as the one that occurred in 1966 when the water level rose a record 76.4 inches, last year over 75 percent of the city flooded with saltwater, eating away at the canal walls and the foundations of buildings.

The lowest point in the city is Piazza San Marco, a mere 31-inches above sea level. It is the first to flood – over 200 times a year. Even when there is no Acqua Alta, it is common to see salt water gurgling up from the drains at high tide, leaving pools of water across the Piazza that Napoleon is said to have called “The Drawing Room of Europe.”

When the waters are high enough, city workers position long wooden walkways in the most “at risk” areas so that people can keep their feet dry. But the walkways are only two feet high and of limited use when the water is higher.

There seems only one hope for Venice – the construction of a series of underwater floodgates that are raised to keep out the high tides. Originally proposed in 1972, a Consortium of construction companies started construction of MOSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromecanico) in 1982. It is somewhat ironic that MOSE is the Italian name for Moses, of Red Sea-parting fame. It was supposed to be finished in 1995 at a cost of $2.1 billion. Thirty years later the costs have risen to $7.8 billion, and it is unlikely to be operational until 2018 or perhaps even 2020. Apart from the usual bureaucratic delays endemic to doing business in Italy, in 2014 an investigation into corruption led to the arrest of 35 individuals involved in the project, including members of the Venetian Government.

The premise of the project is similar to London’s Tidal Barrier. Seventy-eight steel gates, resting on the bottom of the lagoon at strategic locations fill with compressed air and rise to meet the incoming sea. Once the danger of flooding has passed, the gates refill with water and sink back down into the lagoon.

A central control center is already operational in a converted chapel in the Arsenale where staff members monitor charts and diagrams as well as cameras installed on the gates and determine when they should be opened and closed.

Environmentalists and Venetians are skeptical, but there doesn’t seem to be a better solution, bearing in mind that the MOSE will only protect the city from tides of up to 3 meters (about 10 feet) for about 100 years. Presumably, in that time humanity will have come up with a different, more permanent solution. As John Keats once wrote, “if the thought of Venice sinking captures the imagination, then it should be a wake-up call to save the city as an essential basis of the civilization we cherish.”

If you happen to visit Venice between November and April and hear a siren, find your way to higher ground since this is the signal that the Acqua Alta is about to engulf the city. Fortunately, it only lasts a few hours until the tide has peaked and then it seeps away until the next time.

IF YOU ARE IN VENICE DURING ACQUA ALTA

Venetians keep a close eye on the weather and the tide tables. Although most of the following websites are in Italian, it is possible to get the gist of the information. Check www.comune.venezia.it/maree/ for the 3-day forecast. You can also call 39-041-242-2996 for recorded information in Italian.

You don’t need to pack waterproof boots. The local merchants do a booming business selling multicolored knee-high plastic pull-on boots. Expect to pay anywhere from 6 to 10 euros depending on how close you are to St. Mark’s Square.

IF YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE

There are a number of organizations which accept contributions for the preservation of Venice. The UK based Venice in Peril is interesting because of the number of projects they sponsor. www.veniceinperil.org

 

 

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