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Venice is drowning: will one of the world's most beautiful cities disappear beneath the waves? - Special Report

Current Events, Nov 29, 2002

THERE'S REALLY NO PLACE like Venice, the floating city on Italy's northeast coast, off the Adriatic Sea. In Venice, the streets are canals and the buses and taxis are boats. More than 12 million tourists from around the world come to Venice each year to ride along its canals, view its great squares and art-filled palaces, eat in its world-class restaurants, and stay in its elegant hotels. The city is one of the world's great treasures.

Yet Venice has a monstrous problem: The city is sinking slowly, but surely, into the sea. If something isn't done--and soon--there won't be any Venice to visit.

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Venice has had an intimate relation with the sea for many centuries. The city is built on 118 small islands connected by more than 400 bridges. Some tourists are ferried around in gondolas--long, slender boats guided by gondoliers who each use a single, long pole called a sweep to push each boat along. Most Venetians travel on speedboats and vaporettos, or "water buses," which shuttle passengers up and down the Grand Canal, the wide waterway that courses through Venice's center, past palaces and modern office buildings.

At the heart of Venice is St. Mark's Square, which surrounds the massive, five-domed Church of St. Mark. The Campanile, a tall bell tower, stands nearby, as does the Doge's palace. When Venice was an independent country, it was ruled by magistrates called Doges (DOHJ-es), who used the city's location to dominate the nearby seas. The pink stone palace was once the central building of Venice's sea empire, which included territories in the eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic seas for 1,000 years. (See "Empire of the Sea" on page 4.)

Motorboats and Pigeons

St. Mark's, the Doge's Palace, and Venice's other great stone buildings may look sturdy, but they rest on wooden posts driven into the muddy waters of the Adriatic--and are under attack as never before.

Motorboats violently churn the surrounding water, damaging the wooden foundations of buildings. Air pollution from factories on the Italian mainland has been damaging many older buildings. Even pigeons are on the attack. The city is overrun with more than 120,000 of the birds, which leave tons of acidic droppings that eat away at the ancient stone buildings.

The greatest threat to Venice, however, is flooding, caused by the city's sinking and the sea's rising. Built on soft soil, Venice sinks slowly under its own weight. Venice's sea level rose about five inches a century until 1990. From he early 1930s until the mid-1970s, city authorities pumped underground water from under the city to supply factories. That accelerated the damage, causing the city to sink about one-fifth an inch per year. In the past 50 years, more of Venice has been overtaken by the sea than in all its history. St. Mark's Square is the city's lowest point, and today high tides flood it about 90 times a year. When the high waters come, tourists scatter. City workers rush to assemble temporary walkways over the old stones, and cafe owners take their tables to higher floors and pass out high boots to customers.

Now Venice must battle the effects of global warming. Many scientists believe Earth is getting warmer due to gases released by automobiles and factories.

The increase in warmth is slowly melting the polar ice craps, raising sea levels around the world. Some scientists argue the the sea levels of all major seas could rise as much as 18 inches in this century, flooding coastal cities from North America to Asia to Africa and Europe. If those scientists are right, high tides or storms could flood Venice on a regular basis even in the next few years.

History of Flooding

Venice has dealt with floods, or acqua alta (high water), since its beginnings. Records show that major floods soaked the city in A,D. 589, 885, and 1268. At those times, Venetians responded by raising the level of the city's buildings. Archaeologists have found that parts of Venice have been built up as high as 13 feet above their original foundations over the years. The sea, however, has been unrelenting.

On November 4, 1966, a high tide sent water levels 4 feet above normal, flooding much of the city. Then the southern Mediterranean wind known as the sirocco blew in, keeping the floodwaters from receding. When the next high tide hit, the city went under. Venice's historic center was under 6 feet of water. Power failed and gas tanks broke. Thousands of drowned rats floated into the canals. Rats that survived scurried up the sides of buildings, terrorizing stranded residents.

Many Venetians were trapped for three days. The flood caused millions of dollars in damage and ruined many valuable paintings and statues.

The 1966 flood seemed to be Venice's wake-up call. The Italian government, supported by cultural groups from around the world, took up the cause of saving Venice from the sea. But they could not agree on what to do--and as yet almost nothing has been done. Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, agreed to fund a $2.5 billion plan to save Venice. The plan endorsed by Berlusconi's government has been dubbed MOSE, after Moses, the biblical figure that called upon God to part the Red Sea.

Venice is drowning: will one of the world's most beautiful cities disappear beneath the waves? - Special Report

Current Events, Nov 29, 2002

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