Billion-dollar floodgates might not save Venice
By Sylvia Poggioli The construction of mobile floodgates aims to safeguard the 1,300-year-old island city of Venice. It’s an ambitious engineering project, but some scientists say it may not be sufficient to protect Venice from rising sea levels due to climate change. Venice rose from mudflats in the middle of a lagoon which forms the largest wetland in the Mediterranean. One of the world’s most endangered cities, it has been subject to increasing flooding due to sinking land — but also to rising sea levels. It’s known as “aqua alta” — high water — and it brings city life to a standstill for several hours. Big boats can’t go under low-hanging bridges, and water seeps into buildings through the sewage system. Venetians have not lived on the ground floor for decades. Sophisticated technology is now being used for what has become a full-scale emergency. At one of the three inlets that lead from the sea into the lagoon, a massive mechanical hammer is driving a steel and concrete piling into the lagoon bed. Elena Zambardi works for the consortium safeguarding Venice and says the use of pilings was invented by the visionaries who founded the city 1,300 years ago. …
The only way to save Venice is to jack every building in the city 2 – 7 meters higher. It will be a massive undertaking costimg trillions of Euros.
It will require sheet piling driven around every block and the space surrounded pumped with grout. Every bridge in the city will have to be rebuilt by hand. It will take decades.
It will cost less than maintaining the current nuclear weapon arsenal; a no- brainer.
Boh Brothers can start working on it next week.