from March 29th
by Lucia Athens
Venice, Italy
I just arrived today in Venice, on my way to speak at the Innovate to Beat the Crisis conference. See http://www.festivaldellecittaimpresa.it/ At this time of year, they have high tide, or “aqua alta” as they call it. There is a siren that goes off about 2 hours before the tide starts to rise. This city has been sinking for centuries, with foundations on top of foundations on top of foundations. When the tide is particularly high, there are special raised walkways that are laid down in the most flooded areas. There are even maps that show circulation routes that avoid the flooding. Not having been to Venice in 25 years, and being a bit jet lagged, I was not quite tuned in to the perils that high tide might hold for me that very night. I walked about 20 minutes from my hotel, in the old Jewish ghetto, to the Rialto bridge. My journey was rewarded with a wonderful meal at the Trattoria dellal Madonna, a place where the locals go to dine. I was introduced to the restaurant by my Italian architecture professor, Paolo Baruchieri, when I was studying landscape architecture in a studies abroad program. The place had not changed one jot. Still the wonderful cubist paintings on the walls, the white jacketed waiters, and the delicious spaghetti alla vongole (with fresh clams in the shell).
By the time I left the restaurant it was near 11 pm. After turning out of the alley onto the main canal, I was surprised to find water lapping over the edges of the canal and up against the building foundations. I slogged through water up to well over my ankles, and then along the temporary walkways back the way I had come. I quickly realized the route that had brought me there was now impassable. Luckily, I hopped on a water taxi, or vaporetto which ferried me back to the area of my hotel. Between the vaporetto landing and my hotel was another slog through about 9 inches of water. With my short ankle boots completely filled up with the (not very clean) canal water, I finally got back to the hotel, dry socks, and towels. Over the next few days, I began to notice that shops sell huge rubber galoshes and plastic booties. I began to notice how many women wear flat, high topped boots. Fashionable, but practical for walking all over the city and tromping through high tide. Venice was a city inundated by the tides already, and with the rising sea level threat brought by global climate disruption, this would accelerate. Even now, the lower floors of many buildings are not used as living areas. The upper piano nobiles of the grand casas stayed well above the lower floors which tend to flood. How would Venice deal with rising sea levels? My friends in Venice did not seem to have much confidence that the huge multi-billion euro floodgate project, aka Project Moses, would ever be finished due to cost overruns and impracticality. The project intends to construct 78 huge steel gates across tidal inlets to the Venice lagoon. The highest sea levels in 22 years were experienced back in December after massive rainfall, resulting in water levels 5 feet above normal. For footage, see http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=95431
As climate change accelerates, Venetians and others living in coastal areas can expect increased flooding, unpredictable extreme storm events, and ever rising water levels. We as design professionals must explore not only how to lower our climate impact with new development, but also how to adapt to the changing conditions of climate. How will cities manage increased flooding and disasters? How can we create greener infrastructure strategies such as natural drainage systems to provide increased resiliency in the face of more extreme and unpredictable conditions? In the UK, they are required to place all electrical service and outlets several feet off the ground, an interesting code response that anticipates rising sea levels and floods. The need to stay nimble with our building codes and design of the built environment is not something we can wait to deal with until later. We must act now
