Name: Venice Is Flooding More than Ever. An Engineer Explains How to Save the City.
Uploaded: 2024-01-05T05:00:00Z
Duration: 7 min 42 s
Description: Venice spent about $6 billion on a mobile floodgate system that can block high tides from inundating the city. But it won’t be enough. WSJ explores potential solutions to protect the “floating city” from being overrun by water. Photo illustration: MacKenzie Coffman

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Venice spent about $6 billion on a mobile floodgate system that can block high tides from inundating the city. But it won’t be enough. WSJ explores potential solutions to protect the “floating city” from being overrun by water. Photo illustration: MacKenzie Coffman

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Venice Is Flooding More than Ever. An Engineer Explains How to Save the City.

Narrator: It's no secret. Venice has a flooding problem. Here's St. Mark Square, it's the lowest point in Venice.

It used to be flooded only 40 times a year.

Narrator: Now, it floods 250 times a year. But Venice also gets larger floods that can cover this much of the city.

Giovanni: In the past, this was a very exceptional case.

Narrator: But since 2000, it's happened 16 times. In 2019, a catastrophic flood cost the city over $1 billion. So we brought in engineer Giovanni Cecconi to discuss how Venice can rein in the tides before it drowns. These are the MOSE barriers which Giovanni helped design and operate.

Narrator: They're mobile storm surge gates that rise to separate the Venetian lagoon from the sea. It's the city's $6 billion solution to flooding.

This is the Venice Lagoon with the three entrances: Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia.

Narrator: Two times a day, the high tide comes in and fills the lagoon with water. The low tide then flushes the water back out to sea. To block high tides, the MOSE barriers were installed in each inlet.

This is the bottom of the canal in which the barrier are installed, and inside there is the flood gate.

Each gate is 66 feet wide, 12 to 16 feet thick, and 61 to 97 feet tall, making the tallest gate more than half the size of the leaning tower of Pisa. So if forecast show especially high tides, the city raises the gates, which takes about 30 minutes.

The air is pumped inside, it start floating. But because of the hinges, it will assume 50 degree position, keeping the sea higher and the lagoon at the lower level.

Narrator: Once raised, the barriers can maintain a difference in water level from the sea to the lagoon of about 10 feet. And for now, it's working. In 2022, a 5.5 foot tide was forecasted to hit Venice, which could have flooded 82% of pedestrian walkways. Because of the barriers, locals and tourists only had to face wind and rain. But when the 78 MOSE barrier gates are raised, they don't just keep water out, they also keep what's in the lagoon in. That's an issue because some of Venice's sewage flows into the lagoon and requires the tide to wash it out. And that's not the only problem.

In 50-60 year, if the sea level will rise more than two feet, the MOSE will become useless.

Narrator: This increase in sea level has led to more high tides, which has led the city to raise the gates far more often than originally planned, 66 times so far. But the sea level isn't just rising. Venice is also sinking.

Over the last century, the city has sunk six inches. The sea level rose 4.3 inches.

Narrator: Starting in the 1930s, water was pumped out from underground to support industrial development, compacting the earth and causing the city to subside. Though the city has stopped pumping, Venice is still sinking at a rate of one to two millimeters per year. So some scientists have a proposal, lift the city back up by injecting water back underground

Below Venice, we have different strata of clay and sandy soil. Sand is made of solid and water, and this water has a certain pressure. If you increase the pressure, the grain will increase in volume. And so you are very bound.

Narrator: Scientists estimate that this could push Venice up about 10 to 12 inches. And this idea has been implemented before.

Giovanni: Here we are in Long Beach, California.

Narrator: Starting in the 1940s, water and oil were pumped out from underneath Long Beach, sinking the city and causing frequent flooding.

And here, there has been a successful recovery injecting the water back into the wells.

Narrator: But Venice and Long Beach aren't quite the same. Giovanni says Venice has a different type of soil than Long Beach and if Venice implemented this technique, it might not be as successful.

Giovanni: If we pump water below ground and this produce an uneven displacement on the surface, you can figure out what will happen.

Narrator: The centuries old buildings and bridges could crumble.

And this has to be maintained forever.

Narrator: Because if the city stopped pumping water,

Giovanni: This elevation that we gain will be lost as a souffle that was abandoned out of the oven.

Narrator: But there's another engineering solution, a much larger one, a super levee.

Giovanni: The super levee will enclose the city inside this red line.

Narrator: Ordinary levees are embankments meant to block flood waters, but significant flooding can flow over the top or seep through, breaking the levee and cascading into the area it's meant to protect. Super levees solve this problem by creating a flood protection zone. They have a wide footprint with a low-grade back slope. In Venice, it would be about 13 feet tall and extend almost 400 feet along the base. It makes them resistant to water overflow and seepage. And even if water reached the top, it would flow slowly down the slope instead of cascading down, like it would with a standard levee. In Venice, a super levee would divide the lagoon, forming a lake inside the boundary.

There will be a permanent opening to allow the flushing of the city, so the water will enter continuously, and we can produce electricity here.

Narrator: Pumps would help mimic the natural tide.

This will allow the the water to circulate inside the city to keep the city fresh so we can swim again in the city.

Narrator: And on top, there would be room to build infrastructure.

Garage, transportation, a bicycle route, trees.

Narrator: And lastly.

We can relocate the tourism from the historical city to the super levee.

Narrator: Currently, Venice has more beds for tourists than it has citizens. Giovanni believes a super levee could alleviate the battle for space and revitalize other industries in the city. But this plan faces a hurdle. Construction of the MOSE system was embroiled with corruption and delays. Building a super levee by the time the MOSE barrier becomes ineffective would require laws to change and the public's approval.

What we can learn from the past is, we need direct participation of the people. So there will be not Giovanni Cecconi super levee, but the super levee of the people of Venice.

Narrator: In the meantime, Venice has found other ways to adapt to the rising tides. Glass barriers protect ancient monuments from the salt water, raised walkways funnel crowds around, and Venetians wear waiters.

The history of Venice is a 2000-year history of adaptation in which the solution were found by trial and error. I am optimistic because there will be great transformation in the future.