A new study by Italian scientists predicts that parts of Venice will be submerged under water by 2150. The study was carried out by experts from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and analyzed data on rising tide levels, reports euronews.com.
Venice has been struggling with increasingly frequent floods for decades. The city has a system of flood barriers in an enclosed bay in the northern Adriatic Sea that surrounds Venice and its islands.
The team of INGV scientists found that tidal levels in the Venetian lagoon are rising at a rate of about half a centimeter per year. The exact increase varies across the city from 4,22 millimeters on Lido Island to 5 millimeters in Malamoko. The data is based on statistics collected by the Venice Tidal Center over the last 20 years.
The researchers combined this with satellite data on land subsidence recorded between 2008 and 2023. The study concluded that some areas of the city will be permanently underwater by 2150.
Which parts of the city will be most affected?
Researchers predict that parts of Venice's most famous square, San Marco, will be under 70 cm of water. The western part of the city will also be one of the first to be affected – it is one of the most frequently flooded areas, going under water 58 times between 2019 and 2023.
"Sea-level rise is leading to increasingly severe and widespread coastal erosion, beach retreat and marine flooding with very significant environmental and socio-economic impacts on the population," says INGV researcher Marco Anzidei.
The mobile barrier system at the entrances to the MOSE Lagoon is now operational – although it will be 2025 before it is fully operational. The gates are raised at high tides and prevent water from entering the lagoon and the town. However, this is a short-term solution.
A 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected a rise in regional mean sea level by 2100 of 28-55 centimeters in their most optimistic global warming scenario – and 63-101 centimeters in their most pessimistic scenario.
In these cases, the mobile barriers would have to be raised so often that Venice's port industry would collapse and the lagoon - which had been "washed" by tidal exchanges - would become a swamp.
A group of environmental scientists from the University of Padua is pushing for greater protection of the lagoon's salt marshes. They are crucial for flood protection because they act as buffers that protect the city from high tides and are also a powerful carbon sink.