midst of a large lagoon, Venice’s buildings had to be regularly replaced
as they sank into the muck, and under its squares and walkways, arche-
ologists have uncovered layer after layer of pavement laid over the cen-
turies to keep residents’ feet dry. But during the twentieth century, the
rate of sinking accelerated, in part due to the pumping of vast amounts
of groundwater by industry. Relative sea level increased by more than
9 inches due to a combination of sinking land and rising seas. Neglect
made matters worse. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, Italians stopped maintaining Venice’s canals and flood
defenses, leaving the city more vulnerable to flood events.
As in the Netherlands, it took a terrible flood to awaken the
nation’s leaders to the threat. In November 1966, storm winds pushed
waters up to the head of the Adriatic in the midst of a peak spring tide,
swamping Venice under several feet of water for more than 24 hours.
Phones and electricity went out as sensitive equipment slipped under-
water. Large numbers of rats crawled up the walls of homes, while the
canals were clogged with floating furniture and slicks of heating oil.
There were no fatalities, but Venetians realized they could no longer
live in ground-floor apartments. Something would clearly have to be
done.
Unfortunately for Venice, Italian governments are less stable than
their Dutch counterparts, and decades passed without any serious
action taken on the soggy grounds of the Venice lagoon. “In Italy, gov-
ernments change like the weather,” says John Keahey, author of Venice
against the Sea. “It takes many, many years to design and execute a
project to protect the city, but Italian governments don’t last more than
a couple of years. It’s the Italian way of political life.”
As various flood control plans languished, scientists brought more
bad news. The world’s seas, they predicted, will rise considerably dur-
ing the twenty-first century, raising the seas by as much as 3 feet rela-
tive to Venice’s squares, streets, and low-clearance bridges. That could
put much of the city underwater with almost every high tide. Slowly,
haltingly, officials in far-off Rome finally moved toward approving an
ambitious solution to Venice’s watery predicament.
The plan, provisionally approved at the end of 2001, borrows heav-
ily from the Netherlands’ Delta Project. The centerpiece is a $3 billion
34 Colin Woodard