The Failed Plan to Save Venice

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Am I the only one left thinking that the system is awful if you need 80 people and 2 days to turn it on? How did this ever get funded?

I am an engineer, I live in Venice and I do work on this project. The gates might have a lot of drawbacks, but at least they are not visible. The lagoon of Venice is practically a natural reserve, especially in the vicinity of the sea inlets: the gate project in the Rotterdam style was rejected exactly for this reason (and the inlet in Lido is almost 2 km wide, compared to the 0,4 km of the dutch project). The gates themselves are huge, they can easily withstand a tide of +3 m and need very little modification to go above this threshold. The main concerns lie with the environmental impact of their activation: firstly because they consume a lot of energy, secondly because they impact on the vital interaction of the lagoon with the Adriatic: in the worst case scenario, it is expected that by the end of the century, flooding above the 110 cm threshold will occur for 180 days per year, thus this problem needs to be carefully handled. For the concerns about the navigation and trade, an offshore port (with an underwater train connection) is being studied, an idea which could also remove all the container and cruise ships which are still allowed to enter the very shallow water of the lagoon.

Another reasons why MOSE is not operated more often is that Tides and floods are essential to keep the Lagoon ecosystem alive.

Honestly as a Venetian I have to say that the Mose works pretty well. The 110 cm threshold was chosen as at that level the flood only takes a small portion of the city. The real reason it won't be turned on more often is because Venice still is a sea city, and we can't stop the traffic more often. The cost is not really a problem, that figure you have shown was while in the early days, where the "electronic" stuff was not ready and there were few compressors, so a lot of people were needed to operate it. Now it's almost finished and the operating cost came down a lot. As far as San Mark Basilica is concerned that is an ancient building, and unfortunately built really low on the sea level, so a different system was needed to fill the gap between the basilica flood and the activation of the mose for the whole lagoon. In any case there was already a system that protected the crypt from the water, this new system was a more drastic choice but mainly for the salt creeping trough the bricks into the wall damaging the marble and the mosaics.

I love these videos when you do a follow-up to the projects that you guys covered and whether things went according to plan or not.

It costs 0.004% of its build cost to operate. If it operated 100 times a year for 100 years it would only cost half its build cost over 100 years, it probably wont last 50. Not sure the operating cost is a real reason.

The system Is meant to stop the biggest floods, not all floods (which always happened). The system Is also meant to permit a recyirculation of water in the laguna. The big ships are the big problem of the city because of the waves created by them, if it can block them the better. Venice is an Italian city, not an other Disneyland.

This video (partially) starts from the wrong premise that Venice is trying to block ALL high tides. Its objective is to block all EXCEPTIONAL high tides (over 120cm). St Mark Square is 80cm over the 0 level. So it is perfectly normal that St Mark and the lower points go underwater with below 120cm high tides. That said, due to subsidence and rising sea levels that will overcome Mose in 100 years or so, it is indeed correct that it is time again to raise the city level itself. I am confident Venice will win this new race for its survival, as it did all past ones 😉

So how exactly is that plan of raising the whole city up by 30-35 cm supposed to work? How would they do it while preventing damage considering it's already been used in other cities?

I remember my professor warning us about this project 3 years ago. He was actually one of the first people that got contacted to give feedback to this project, he shared this idea with some colleagues from Utrecht university and they came up with the idea to pump salt water back into the ground where previously fresh drinking water had been stored but depleted over the years. Haven’t heard from him since, but I have been told that he prefers working with Oman simply cuz there are less bureaucratic problem then in Venice.

09:40 This was an ideal setup for a pun around sunk cost fallacies

I don't know where the video made its research: the MOSE is working according to plan, engineers knew perfectly well that St Mark square (the lowest area of the city) would flood slightly even with MOSE operating, the new barrier on St Mark square was built to remedy that. All the big tides of the last year have been prevented by MOSE and even its detractors admit it is working. Where do you get your info?

I read somewhere a few years ago that the tourist ships were the worst destructed factor in Venise! One year not long time ago when there was drought and the ships could not go through, they could see the clear water and the fishes at the bottom!

My plan; Step 1) Consult the Dutch. Step 2) Do as they say.

Man I hate those Masterwork sponsorships...

I've been to Venice twice and it's such a magical city! I pray we find a long term solution FAST!

This is one of those situations where hindsight truly is 20/20. When the city was first built, people were not thinking about how large it could get. It isn't a great site for a large city at all. It certainly is novel and a beautiful place. No one can take that away from it. Eventually mother nature will win this battle..sadly.

if NL can engineer a whole country below sea level, I'm sure Venice will figure it out eventually 🙄

Fighting flooding in a city built at sea level is literally fighting gravity.