May
26
Serenissima featured in World Landscape Architecture
THE ETERNAL CITY?
Due to faster than expected sea level rise, scientists project that even the drastic intervention of the M.O.S.E. sea barrier project will only delay the permanent flooding of Venice by 100 to 200 years. In this future vision of drastically altered climate conditions, coastal cities such as Venice will have to physically and economically reinvent themselves in order to survive.
After the M.O.S.E. sea gates stop functioning, Venice will once again face imminent danger. Concurrently, sewage pollution will increase exponentially because the sea barrier will increasingly close the lagoon which will no longer be renewed by the tides. Venice has never maintained a main sewage system- for this reason, a large portion of the wastes generated in the historic center of Venice have always been discharge directly into its channels. Water quality, particularly near the city, is extremely poor.
Although Venice has a thriving tourism based economy, the city is becoming mummified, a static image of itself. The future of the industrial areas inland with their dying petrochemical industry grows ever weaker, while Venice itself is continually losing inhabitants. The future is a complex dynamic of environmental pressures and economic imperatives.