Venice's MOSE flood barriers, in use since October 2020, have enabled La Serenissima to stay dry for the first time in history. But with climate change, how long can they make a difference?
The first thing it resembles -- this private, manmade island, straddling the Adriatic Sea and the Venetian lagoon -- is a Bond villain's lair. The second -- as you dock at the private pontoon, walk past the Brutalist concrete façade, and into a"control room" where staff watch monitors tracking the waters around the island 24/7 -- is something out of"Squid Game."
Their fears were proved groundless on October 3, 2020, however, when, as regularly happens in winter, Venice was hit by an exceptionally high tide. Overlooking the bucolic island of Sant'Erasmo, with the snow-tufted Dolomites on the horizon, it's a"no man's land between the sea and lagoon" where the lagoon and Adriatic waters converge, according to engineer and site director Alessandro Soru.
Inside, a wall of monitors in the control room streams live CCTV footage of boats passing through the three channels. It also feeds in information on weather and tide levels, and monitors the barriers when they are raised. But when tides are high, this is the 24/7 hub of the whole operation, with a 100-strong team operating in the control room, in the underwater tunnels, and in the lagoon, as boats zip around to bring workers to the island -- since there's no public transport. There's even accommodation so workers can sleep here between shifts.Consorzio Venezia Nuova
Inside the concrete chests sit the metal floodgates, treated every three months with an anti-corrosive -- non-toxic, because of the lagoon ecosystem. Each of the 78 barriers is a uniform 20 meters wide, and varies from 20-30 meters in length, depending on the depth of the water. When the tide subsides, water is pumped back into the fins and air expelled, causing them to sink down again and settle in their cases. It takes just 32 minutes to raise them, and about half that to lower them -- that's down from 91 minutes last year, according to Elisabetta Spitz, the"extraordinary commissioner" responsible for the project, who reports to the Italian government.The process sounds simple, but has been honed to a precise degree.
It's not just the MOSE operatives who receive it."It informs everyone who operates in the lagoon to get going, because everyone has to do something -- from the guy driving the trash-collecting boat who needs to change course, to ships needing to go in and out," she explains. Last year, on December 8, Venice was hit by a 138cm flood, causing extensive damage to the city, just weeks after the MOSE had shown it never need happen again. The reason? Only 125cm had been predicted, but wind, rain and river water rocketed the sea level up."I take responsibility for it," says Spitz."It was one of the first raisings, we had a procedure that was a bit more complicated and as acqua alta [flooding] wasn't predicted, we took the decision to not mobilize it.
In fact, says Soru, the barriers will be raised when it looks like the tide will hit 100cm, to account for wind and rain raising the water levels. "When it goes up, it's three, four hours maximum," she says."And then it's not a given that you have to raise all the barriers. There are many possibilities and much flexibility. We're trialing all of them to target choices better to the needs that will gradually show up. Every time we do a raise, we prepare dozens of tests to get the answers we need, understand the function and make it better.
"But above all we need to find a point of mediation between economic needs -- of those who operate in the lagoon -- and the need to protect. That's the big question we'll need to take forward down the line." "If in 100 years the barriers aren't enough, and we can't hold off 3-meter tides, I can tell you the problem won't be Venice," adds Spitz.
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