Venice port expansion threatens city, environmentalists warn

Plan to accommodate larger ships could lead to more flooding of Unesco world heritage site
Venice, Italy
Higher tides accociated with more shipping could exacerbate flooding in Venice. Photograph: Corbis Sergio Pitamitz/Corbis

The Italian authorities plan to expand Venice's port into a bustling shipping hub, further endangering the fragile lagoon the sinking city is built on, a conservation group warned today.

Venice in Peril, a British fund that works to preserve Venice, said a report it had obtained from the local port authority showed plans to accommodate more, and bigger, ships in an attempt to compete with other European harbours.

The Venice port authority confirmed it had written the report, but insisted the works would respect the environment and were necessary to deal with the growing flow of tourists and goods.

The debate illustrates the complex and often controversial 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 to 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 €260m (£230m) on dredging inlets and navigation channels to allow the passage of ships of up to 400 metres (1,300 feet) in length.

This is particularly alarming for conservationists because dredging and heavy shipping 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.


Under the combined effect of rising water levels and settling of the land, Venice has sunk 23cm (9in) in the last 100 years.

Most experts agree that the waves generated by large ships and the currents that run through the deep passageways play a big part in the rising water levels, displacing and dragging out to sea the sandbanks and other sediments that help protect the city.

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, forcing tourists and locals alike to don rubber boots and teeter along impromptu bridges.

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, declaring them solved thanks to a project to build towering movable barriers designed to rise from the seabed and prevent flooding.

The €4.3bn system, called Moses, is expected to be operational by 2014.


Not so, some experts said.

The Moses barriers block shipping, so they would be raised only when an exceptionally high tide is expected. That would not lower the average sea level, and would 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 was needed to restore the navigation channels, which are filling up with silt, to their original depth. They said the digging would not go beyond the depth allowed by law, and any expansions on land would 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 to reconstruct the natural lagoon features that protected the city for centuries.

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