Venice is just over 1,600 years old, so it's quite confronting dealing with the reality that its time may be over in as little as a generation or two.
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time → deal → generation
Unless something radical is done, climate change may swallow this UNESCO World Heritage site by the end of the century, meaning this is a city your grandchildren may never experience.
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grandchildren → do → century
And as a headline act in the climate crisis we're facing, contemplating what it means if we can't save Venice has enormous consequences well beyond Italy.
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we → face → Italy
As a guest reporter for Foreign Correspondent, I visited Venice to find out: can it still be saved?
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it → visit → Venice
For centuries, the city's war fleets and traders arrived via the Adriatic Sea just a few kilometres from the heart of the city.
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fleets → arrive → city
But Venice has always had an interesting relationship with the water.
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Venice → have → water
Centuries ago, Venetians diverted rivers to prevent their lagoon from silting up.
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Venetians → divert → lagoon
Venetian floods aren't caused by rain; they're tidal, with autumn and winter high tides bringing water levels that flood the lowest-lying parts of the city.
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that → cause → city
These high tides (which Italians call "acqua alta") come and go in a matter of hours, but combined with a low-pressure system in the Adriatic, they can create far higher tidal floods.
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they → call → floods
Over the years, you may have seen what happens then — footage of floods in St Mark's Square and tourists in waders with floating luggage.
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what → see → luggage
Over Venice's history, extreme high tides, flooding more than 60 per cent of the city, have been rare, but that's changing thanks to sea level rises.
Over the last 130 years, the average water level in Venice has risen 32 centimetres, and worryingly, 18 of the most extreme acqua alta have occurred in the past 23 years.
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18 → flood → years
Holding back the sea
You might be thinking, "Didn't Venice already get saved?"
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Venice → hold → sea
Yes, it did, but that's only half the story.
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that → do → ?
MOSE — the modulo sperimentale elettromeccanico (experimental electromechanic module) — which cost at least $8 billion, is an engineering marvel that has temporarily saved the day.
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that → cost → day
Opened in 2020, MOSE is a system of 78 tidal barriers that rise from the sea floor at Venice's three lagoon inlets once forecasts predict acqua alta at a certain height.
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forecasts → open → height
MOSE barriers literally hold back the tide, temporarily cutting off the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea.
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barriers → hold → Sea
MOSE had a bizarrely long gestation.
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MOSE → have → gestation
The trigger for action was the worst flood on record: the 1966 acqua alta that inundated the vast majority of the city.
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that → inundate → city
It took more than six years for the Italian government to pass legislation to take control of Venice's future and protect it from flooding.
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government → take → flooding
Then it took a further 11 years before a consortium was formed to build MOSE, and almost two more decades before building began.
In 2014, a corruption scandal engulfed the project, delaying things even further.
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scandal → take → things
And what happened in November 2019, when another storm combined with an acqua alta?
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storm → happen → alta
MOSE was still in its testing period while the city recorded its worst flood since 1966 — some estimate 85 per cent of the city went underwater.
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cent → record → city
When I met Giovanni Zarotti, the director general of MOSE, he told me the system was being used far more frequently than it was designed for.
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it → meet → me
"Currently, the number of closures is running at about 20 to 30 each year," he said, "approximately between two and three times what the original design predicted.
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design → run → what
"In these six years we have carried out more than 150 closures of the system, meaning in 150 situations — 156 to be precise — we had situations of potential high water, which would therefore have flooded Venice, but were avoided by having operated MOSE.
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which → carry → MOSE
"
But given it took so long to build, surely these sea-level rises were predicted?
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rises → give → ?
Piero Lionello, a Venetian and globally respected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climatologist, said the design was "a very strong underestimation of future sea level that MOSE was going to face".
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MOSE → say → that
A less polite interpretation could be: the rate that sea levels have risen has totally blown up the original predictions for this project.
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levels → rise → project
MOSE was designed to last 100 years, so how many years does Professor Lionello think it will still operate?
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it → design → ?
"We don't know how many.
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We → know → ?
Maybe 30 years if the most dramatic sea level rise will materialise," he said.
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he → materialise → ?
That's the worst-case scenario, but even more conservative IPCC predictions indicate a half-metre sea level rise by 2100, which would be well beyond what MOSE would be able to hold back when the flooding tides roll in.
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tides → indicate → what
Protecting the port
On the mainland, just a few kilometres to the west of Venice, lies Porto Marghera.
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Marghera → protect → Venice
It seems surprising that a massive shipping port and industrial region could ever have been constructed in the early 20th century next door to one of the world's most precious medieval gems.
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port → seem → gems
In 2021, there was a successful campaign to ban cruise ships from the historic Venetian centre, but local environmentalists like Jane da Mosto think the shipping channels to the port are contentious.
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channels → be → port
"The lagoon is losing sediments at an alarming rate," she said.
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she → lose → rate
"[It's] now becoming too much like ... a marine bay.
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It → become → bay
The water is much deeper and the kinds of fauna that we find is characteristic more of the sea than of the lagoon."
MOSE was designed not only to save Venice, but also so Porto Marghera could still operate.
With the barriers only floated temporarily, it means the shipping traffic, while delayed somewhat, can still pass in and out of the Adriatic.
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traffic → find → Adriatic
But with each notable rise in sea levels, MOSE needs to be operated more often, and by the end of the century, Professor Lionello estimates it could shut the lagoon for up to six months a year.
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it → need → months
At that rate, not only would the port become completely uneconomic, the lagoon and the city would face unknown ecological changes from being deprived of the regular influx of seawater.
St Mark's restoration
One of Venice's most iconic landmarks, the famous San Marco Basilica (St Mark's), has borne the brunt of floods in the past.
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One → become → past
…and 29 more, not listed.