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Venice Holds Back the Sea

Venice Holds Back the Sea

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 Just a few years ago, Venice, Italy, would flood more than 60 times a year. Until the Venetians decided to push back. All that water was due to where Venice is built—in the middle of a lagoon. And why was it built there? In the fifth century, Roman farmers, fleeing invaders, moved out to fishing huts on a string of low mud islands. Battered by tides, they built houses on stilts. But their protection worked. While barbarians pillaged Italy, Venice thrived. Their settlement grew into a city, which grew into the greatest naval power in the Mediterranean—with the whole thing built on stilts. Over the centuries, sediments beneath the city gradually compacted. The Venetians responded by jacking up their buildings farther. But in the twentieth century, drilling and extraction of groundwater and natural gas caused the city to sink faster, while the Adriatic Sea level rose. Tidal flooding became so frequent that Venice built a system of 79 enormous steel gates at the inlets to their lagoon. Each gate is 100 ft tall and weighs 300 tons. It rests flat on the seafloor—till an overly high tide is predicted. Then, Venice pumps the gates full of air, and they slowly stand up, able to hold back 10 ft of ocean surge. When the threat is over, they sink back to the seafloor. There are many other subsiding cities, like New Orleans, Miami, and Jakarta, keeping a watchful eye on the sea—and on the amazing gates of Venice.
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