Italian authorities plan to expand Venice’s port into a bustling shipping hub, further endangering the fragile lagoon and contributing to the sinking of the treasured city built on water, a conservation group said yesterday.
Venice in Peril, a British fund that works to preserve Venice, said a report it obtained from the local port authority showed plans to accommodate more and bigger ships in a bid to compete with rival harbors.
The Venice port authority confirmed it had written the report, but insisted the works will respect the environment and are necessary to deal with the growing flow of tourists and goods.
The debate illustrates the complex balancing act between protecting the UNESCO world heritage site and exploiting a sea port that gives easy access to prosperous areas of northern Italy and central Europe, as well as rapidly developing markets in the Balkans.
The report drawn up for the Italian Senate outlines ongoing and future works including the continued dredging of passages in the shallow lagoon to allow larger vessels in and the construction of a new shipping terminal in the long-declining mainland industrial zone of Porto Marghera.
The port authority is spending at least 260 million euros (US$370 million) to dredge inlets and navigation channels to allow the passage of ships of up to 400m in length.
This is particularly concerning for conservationists because dredging and heavy ship traffic are seen as one of the causes of the rising sea level in the lagoon, which threatens the low-lying islands on which the historic city is built.
“The fact that big ships have access to the lagoon has important consequences for its health,” said Jane da Mosto, a researcher for Venice in Peril. “Apart from environmental concerns ... the problem of high tide is accentuated, so it means more flooding for Venice.”
Under the combined effect of rising water levels and settling of the land, Venice has sunk 23cm in the last century.
Most experts agree that the waves generated by large ships and the currents that run through the deep passageways play a big part, displacing and dragging out to sea the sandbanks and other sediments that help keep water out.
In winter, Venice periodically goes through bouts of acqua alta (high water), when strong winds and high tides conspire to push the sea into streets and piazzas.
The rising sea level has increased the frequency of the floods, and in December, Venice suffered its worst deluge in 22 years.
Experts warn the problem could further worsen in the coming decades as climate change causes sea levels to rise globally.
The port authority report dismisses environmental concerns by declaring them solved thanks to a project to build towering movable barriers designed to rise from the seabed and prevent flooding. The 4.3 billion euro system named Moses is expected to be operational by 2014.
“The problem of the hydraulic equilibrium is solved because it will be manageable through judicious use of the Moses system,” the report says.
Not so, some experts said.
The Moses barriers block shipping so they would only be raised when an exceptionally high tide is expected. That would not lower the average sea level and stop the waters from slowly eating away at Venice’s bricks and stones, said Luigi D’Alpaos, professor of hydrodynamics at the University of Padua.
Officials at the Venice port authority said the dredging is needed to restore the navigation channels, which are filling up with silt, to their original depth. They said the digging will not go beyond the depth allowed by law and any expansions on land will be done within the existing port zone.
But Venice in Peril said work should be done instead to reduce the depth of the channels, where possible, or at least reconstruct the natural lagoon features that protected the city for centuries.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS