After over two weeks of 'acqua alta', or high water, we've had enough of wading around in boots and walking on raised platforms in Venice.
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On Monday 8 January 2001, more than one-eighth of the city's surface was flooded, as the waters rose to 111 centimetres above sea level. The Coses research centre in Venice has estimated that the floods cost the city 11 billion lire a year in lost working hours. When the sirens sound at 6am to warn of high waters, it feels like we are preparing for war against the elements.
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Sometimes it seems that Venice is stuck in the third century, when records show that the inhabitants also struggled against acqua alta. But it does not have to be like this. Humanity has gained more control over the elements and we now have a man-made solution: Project Moses.
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Its religious name captures the splendour of the project. The plan is for 79 separate 300-ton flaps hinged on the seabed, designed to rise up and block water from pouring into the three entrances to the lagoon when high tides are forecast. After over 10 years of work on the project, a prototype has been built and is parked next to the city's arsenal.
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But Project Moses has been delayed for over a year. The former environment minister, Edo Ronchi of the Green Party, did all he could to prevent its implementation with a study and a decree halting its progress. In February 2000, Willer Bordin, as public works minister, promised a decision by the end of the year. Now Bordin has succeeded Ronchi with the environment brief and he has further delayed a decision. Bordin said that the Council of Ministers would decide what to do within the next 30 days (1).
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However, the fact that the government has recently cut its funding for Venice places the project on a knife edge (2). The mayor of Venice, Paolo Costa, has requested 260 billion lire over three years. The government has offered nothing for 2001, followed by 50 billion in 2002 and the same in 2003. The Senate then cut the 2002 funding to 29 billion (3).
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Bordin clearly does not want to give Project Moses the go-ahead. He has stated that a commission for the environment maintains that this intervention 'could cause more serious damage to the lagoon than it would resolve'. Bordin is in favour of raising pavement guards and cleaning the lagoon, as Venetians have done for centuries. Venice's mayor Costa believes raising paths is insufficient. Such solutions, so lacking in ambition, are the consequence of Bordin and the government accepting environmental arguments against Project Moses.
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The Green Party is influential within Venice's local council. It has also threatened to leave the delicate government coalition if Project Moses is approved. The environmentalists argue that the floodgates would be closed so often that sea life in the lagoon would die, as the water would become virtually stagnant, turning the lagoon into a lethal pond. Greenpeace have even run 'poison' tours to parts of the lagoon they claim are already toxic.
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But Giovanni Mazzacurati, the leading engineer and director with the Venezia Nuova Consortium (the body overseeing Project Moses), has disputed this argument. 'It is ridiculous to maintain the opinion that using the barriers for not more than 2.5 hours at a time would transform the lagoon into a smelly and polluted basin', he said. 'This criticism has no logic and no scientific basis.'
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The environmental arguments against Project Moses are often based on fears of climate change leading to a rise in the sea level. US archaeologist Albert Ammerman has claimed that, on the basis of global warming projections, the Moses barriers would be insufficient and would turn the lagoon into a pond for half the year. But mayor Costa pointed out that Ammerman's study used unspecified and unsourced projections for global warming (4). Wider predictions of the scale of global warming remain controversial (5). Paolo Canestrelli, head of Venice's forecasting department, has said he sees no link to global climate trends (6).
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So what causes acqua alta, and is Venice sinking or not?
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More convincing explanations have been put forward by Randolph Guthrie, chairman of Save Venice Inc. The city is part of the African geological plate, which is diving under Europe and pulls Venice down at the rate of 2.5cm every century. The city is now subsiding at the average long-term rate in the world of 2cm to 4cm per century.
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In addition to this, because the Adriatic Sea is enclosed it produces an unusual phenomenon called the 'sessa', a rocking of water rather like in a bathtub. Meanwhile a south wind brings water-saturated air that precipitates in the Veneto region, low pressure that causes the seas to rise in a bubble and a push of water to the north into Venice. The wet autumn that brought floods to much of Europe and caused 25 deaths in Italy may have added to Venice's high waters: on 6 November 2000 the waters rose to a high of 144cm above sea level.
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The normal sea level rose by 23cm during the twentieth century. But recent measurements by the Italian national research council have shown that this has slowed during the past 25 years. The global warming argument against Project Moses is not an adequate explanation of Venice 'sinking'. Instead, it has been deployed to attack any form of human intervention that may affect the city, from the local petrochemical industry to boats travelling through the lagoon.
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A new study by Giannandrea Mencini found that 20,000 boats passed by 23 points in a typical 10-hour period. Bordon, the environment minister, recently confirmed a ban on oil tankers supplying the nearby petrochemical industry unless they are equipped with double hulls. A new 'Low Impact Urban Water Transport Omnibus' has even been tested to replace the old style-water buses, 'vaporetti'. But are we seriously to believe that changing boats will save Venice?
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Maybe the next human cause of 'sinking' will be the 10 million tourists who trample the streets of Venice each year. Every Green argument identifies human actions as the problem and proposes a piecemeal solution that undermines the best proposal so far: Project Moses.
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Londoners were lucky that the Thames barriers were built before the apocalyptic fears of global warming and the widespread and unquestioning acceptance of environmental fears. For those who want to campaign to save the city, this 30-day period, during which time the government considers what to do, is crucial. But it seems likely that the campaign will have to continue into the general election to be held in spring 2001.
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Dominic Standish is director of Progress Consultancy in Veneto, Italy.
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(1) Roberto Bianchin, 'Venezia, Galan accusa "Il governo ci ostacola"', La Repubblica, 12 January 2001
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(2) 'Europe's wettest drawing room', Paul Betts, Financial Times, 13 January 2001
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(3) Guido Gentilli, '"Su Venezia scelte miopi, il governo decida"', Corriere della Sera, 10 January 2001
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(4) 'Venice sinking fast, claims new study', Reuters, 2 September 2000, see CNN
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(5) For example, read 'Global warming claims "based on false data"', by Robert Matthews, Daily Telegraph, 14 January 2000
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(6) See 'Acqua Alta has Venice awash for fifteenth consecutive day', 'Italy Daily', International Herald Tribune, 9 January 2001
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