A chilling report by Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology predicts that large areas of Venice, including St Mark’s Square could be permanently underwater by 2150.
The report finds that tide levels in the Venetian lagoon are rising faster than thought, at a rate of half a centimeter a year on average, a rate that could put St Marks under more than two feet of water over the next 150 years.
The rates of rise are not uniform across the lagoon, accounting for different predictions for different areas. The Western side of the city, which includes Santa Croce, San Polo and Dorsoduro, along with St Mark’s, will be among the worst-affected.
The rising tides are not limited to the Venice lagoon; across the whole Mediterranean Sea tide levels have risen by 18 centimeters over the past century. But Venice is particularly vulnerable because it sits on an unstable base. “Sea level increase, particularly if accelerated locally by subsidence, is leading to increasingly severe and widespread coastal erosion, beach retreat and marine flooding with very significant environmental and socioeconomic impacts for populations,” INGV researcher Marco Anzidei said.
The flooding seen in the image above from 2019 is, for the moment, less common because of the MOSE tide control system that came on line in 2020, but MOSE has already been activated 80 times, far more than expected, and eventually become problematic for two reasons. First, they will eventually no longer be tall enough, and second, if they are raised too frequently, the lagoon could eventually become a marsh, resulting in major wildlife loss and changes in life for Venetians as well.
