Nov
12
Can Venice Be Stopped From Sinking?
An ambitious projecct might stop Venice from being lost under water. As the old buildings continue to fall into a state of decay and water levels rise, many residents are choosing to leave Venice in search of more stable place to call home.
A new project – well, it’s more of an experiment than a project – called the Moses Project (Moses is an acronym for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico) is seeking to regulate the tides in and around Venice’s lagoon. This will, in theory, prevent the city from flooding and the buildings from becoming even more decayed than they already are. Though no one is overly optimistic about the prospects of the Moses project, other seaside cities are taking note and will surely be watching to see if they can use some of the elements of the project to protect their own streets from flooding.
The project has taken nearly three decades. It will be finished in 2011. Currently, there are large metal breakers, huge air-filled buoys and gigantic slabs of rock being dropped into the sea around the inlets to the lagoon that surrounds Venice. The project is said to have a $7 billion price tag.
Some places in Venice are flooded three months out of the year. The Piazza San Marco spends nearly 100 days under a foot of water. This has not seemed to dampen the tourist industry in Venice much. But people in the not-often-visited back alleys and industrial areas of the city are actually not in favor of the Moses Project for the most part. Many would rather see nature take its course and feel that, without the tourist industry, Italy would see no need to try and turn back the sea. Nonetheless, the project continues. A big question is how the large cruise ships that supply Venice with her tourists will be able to get through once the project is completed.
Tags: canals, europe, flood, italy, sinking, venezia, venice