[Idyllchat] For those interested in the city of Venice

[Patricia Edie]

This post isn't about travel specifically, so if you are not interested in 
the situation of "sinking Venice" you might want to delete this post.

I thought it might of interest to those who know and love Venice or are 
planning a future trip there, such as we are.  Last evening my husband and I 
went to an MIT alumni event where a visiting professor, Dr. Rafael Bras, 
spoke about the Moses project in Venice.  He is the head of the oversight 
technical board for this project to install mobile gates in the three 
oceanside entrances into the lagoon.

He had fascinating slides of the lagoon and explained the forces of nature 
at play in the annual floods that occur in Venice during the typical "flood 
months" of October thru March.  During these months a meteorological 
situation exists that causes long waves to come into the lagoon and raise 
the water level.  Now, I am not a scientific person...just married to 
one...but was of interest to me was that I always thought the main problem 
was that Venice was sinking.  While there is a slight compression of the 
clay bedrock, that is not the main cause of annual flooding.  What causes 
the large floods (like in 1966)  is sea level rise.  (This is affected by 
global warming).  This project is installing mobile gates that will be 
activated if there is a threat of a flood greater that 1.10 meters.  For 
smaller floods, they are counting on the passive techniques being put into 
place...raising the pavements of Venice.  Here is an article (dated in 2002) 
that explains the technology of the gates if you are interested:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00088E1F-D709-1D5B-90FB809EC5880000

For me, as a visitor to Venice, I will be looking for evidence of the 
project and will understand what is happening if I find myself walking on 
the raised platforms, trying to keep my shoes dry!

Some other comments Prof. Bras made were regarding the insistence on the 
part of the Italians that these installations not be "ugly" but be so 
minimal and hidden as to not be an eyesore to their "bella città."

Patricia Edie