14 DAY TRIAL // The Italian city of Venice is one of the most beautiful, culturally rich and endangered places in the world. With its homes built atop petrified trees, and directly on water, it stands to reason that any change in water levels has the power to significantly damage the 1,300-year-old town. It is located in the largest wetland in the Mediterranean Sea, inside a lagoon that features extensive mudflats. Venice is located atop such a mudflat, and has been so since it first appeared. For some time, engineers have begun constructions on a six-billion-dollar project aimed at creating floodgates to thwart threats on the city, but new analyses show that the MOSE Project may not be enough, NPR reports.
The MOSE (Experimental Electromechanical Module) Project was designed to incorporate a number of mobile floodgates, able to lift up from the sea, and seal the Venetian Lagoons from the Adriatic Sea. The project is well underway at the lagoon inlets Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia, and, in spite of coming under review in 2006, it was reinstated the following year. The system is also made to work together with other defense mechanisms, including coastal reinforcement and paving improvements on the lagoon environment. Engineers at FIAT are in charge of the work.
Plans are that, until 2014, when MOSE is scheduled to be completed, more than 78 large, mobile floodgates would adorn the entrances to the three lagoons that connect the city to the sea. The constructors drew their inspiration for affixing the gates to pillars driven into the seabed from the Ancient builders of Venice itself. Wooden pillars can be found supporting structures such as bridges, and reinforcing the ground below. After staying in the water for so many years, most of them have turned to stone by now, and cannot even be chipped with a strong ax blow.
The MOSE Project is currently only 54 percent completed. But, some say, before it's finally finished, it could already be outdated. Critics argue that much more radical solutions are needed to resolve what has now become an emergency. Venetians have not inhabited the ground floor of their homes for a few decades, because, for several hours a day, water shoots out of the sewage systems, and floods everything. Inhabitants call the phenomenon “aqua alta,” or high water.