MOSE: The Future of Venice

By: Colin Kolbus, published in 2019

URL : http://engineeringrome.org/2019/05/01/colin-kolbus/

1. Introduction
In the northern part of Venice sits an unassuming bookstore aptly named Libreria Acqua
Alta. Walking inside reveals isles crammed with books piled high, resembling the tight alleyways
that brings customers to the store in mention. But the eclectic collection is not what makes this
store unique, it is the “shelves” that hold them up: gondolas, boats, and bathtubs (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Libreria Acqua Alta, located a few centimeters above high tide, keeps it’s books in various watertight
vessels: barrels, bathtubs, boats, and even a gondola. Everything is also elevated ~50 cm off the ground with plastic
crates.

The city of Venice is seated in the middle of the Venice lagoon, protected by narrow
strips of land from the Adriatic Sea. Due to its location, it is susceptible to flooding. Venetians
are no stranger to flooding, but over the past 50 years the events have become exceedingly
more common due to rising sea level from global climate change. The relative sea level in the
lagoon has been increasing 2.5 mm per year, measured from 1871 to 2014, at an accelerating
rate (Camuffo, Bertolin, & Schenal 2017). During these high-water events, the streets start to
resemble canals and become difficult to navigate. Residents have vacated the first-floor
apartments to move to higher ground for the risk of property damage. Businesses invest in
large door jams to keep the water from getting in. Libreria Acqua Alta took it one step further
and keeps their merchandise out of harms way in watertight vessels. The store’s name
translates directly to “High Water Library”.
A protection project titled MOSE, nearing completion, has the lofty goal of protecting Venice
and its lagoon from the symptoms of a rising sea-level. The MOSE project is composed of
several parts: the largest being a set of mobile barriers installed at the mouth of the lagoon and
other environmental reclamation projects. With the future so uncertain with global climate
change, it is difficult to picture this project fixing problems that haven’t been foreseen yet.
This project will chronicle the MOSE project and each component function in protecting the
lagoon. I will then follow with a critique of the project, specifically how it deals with the big
problem of a changing climate change.

2. The Problem facing Venice

Venice lagoon composes 550 km² and is nearly 400 km² water (Day, Rismondo, Scarton,
Are, & Cecconi 1998). Historically, three rivers discharged into the lagoon, but nowadays only
the smallest, the Dese River remains. The other two now directly discharge into the Adriatic
Sea. The Dese carries freshwater into the increasingly saline lagoon, as well as high
concentrations of agricultural runoff. Large jetties built at each inlet of the lagoon significantly
reduce the import of marine sediment. It loses 1.1×106 m3 of sediment per year (Bettini et al.
1995), accelerated by the increasing presences of motorboats. This is felt most in the “minor”
islands and natural environments surrounding Venice. Many of these areas have natural
shorelines that offer little protection from the battering waves. Slowly, the soil that makes up
the island is washed out to sea.
124 islands create the city with canals and bridges connecting each segment together. The
height of the city varies depending on the location and time of day. The one of the most shallow
locations is near the Salute Church in the Piazza San Marco, which also happens to be the
highest traffic areas in the city (Turismo Venezia 2019). The lagoon oscillates between two low
tides and two high tides a day, semidiurnal. Due to hydro morphological changes in the lagoon,
the mean water line has steadily increased over time with an acceleration in the last 50 years.
Defining how much the Venice lagoon is rising proves to be a very difficult task. Historical
gauges have been fixed to the city to measure vertical land movement but that does not relate
to absolute sea-level. Venetians also marked the common marine level, the algae belt that
grows in the water-dry space created by the tides, with “C” etched in bricks placed in the
foundation. Over years of repairs and rebuilds, these marks were moved or discarded making
their data unusable. They were intelligent enough to realize the importance of this data, but
somewhere along the line that information was lost. There are two possible measurements of
sea-level: relative sea-level is the water’s location on the land, one of the most important to
gather because this is the value that determines the frequency of flooding, and the absolute
sea level is the level of the lagoon measured off the based zero used by ocean hydrologists
everywhere. Relative sea level is composed of the absolute sea level and the vertical land
movement, the water with the land height must be measured in tandem to obtain a useful
value. Camuffo et al. measured the heights of water steps (Figure 2), a step placed right at the
water’s edge to help passengers’ step in and out of boats. The steps are rarely moved and date
back to the age of when the building was built. This allowed them to ascertain a value of +0.30
± 0.04 mm year−1 century−1. This means that the sea level is rising at a faster rate every year
(Camuffo et al. 2017).
Figure 2. Water steps submerged in a Venetian canal. The algae growth distinguishes the common marine level,
located between the high and low tides.

An intervention needed to happen, or these events would make Venice uninhabitable. 2011
hosted 18 high tide events, the most on record (Figure 3). The water slowly comes in with the
high tide and only lasts 3-4 hours.
Figure 3. The number of acqua alta over the past 150 years in Venice. The year 2011 hosted the same number of
events as the total that occurred from 1870 to 1930.
Citta’Di Venezia. (2017). Distribuzione annual delle alte maree[graph].

It’s the damage from these events that makes them the largest threat to the Venetian way of
life. Venice was built on a system of wooden piles driven into the clay below. Due to technology
at the time, the piles do not interact with bed-rock and the city remains in place from friction
between the sediment and the piles, an indirect foundation (Tour). When the foundation of a
building meets the water in the canal, a large brick wall is built to encase the sediment and keep
it in place. This technology worked for hundreds of years, but with the wave pollution from
motorized boats and a rising sea level, the infrastructure is degrading. Traditional clay bricks
won’t degrade underwater since they are always submerged. However, they will fail in a dry-
wet environment that occurs with the rising and falling of the tide. Bricks are made of porous
clay that can absorb saltwater with capillary action. Once the brick dries out, such as after a
high-water event, the salt recrystallizes and expands within the brick, rendering it useless
(Figure 3).
Figure 3.1 Crumbling brick from the expansion of salts as they crystallize.
Figure 3.2 Salt forming on the brick face.

This was designed for and a waterproof Istrian stone was laid within the foundation to prevent
water from raising up the wall of the buildings there. Nowadays, these stones lie well below the
water line, leaving the water free to make its way up brick walls causing severe structural
damage (Insula Spa 2011). As the brick fails, it can make it’s way into the sediment foundation.
Slowly, the sediment below these buildings is washed out with the tide in a positive feedback
loop as even more brick becomes exposed. When the sediment transports out of the
foundation, the piles don’t have enough friction to support the force of the structure above it
and it subsides into the clay to equilibrate the forces. Without intervention, the islands that
compose Venice would slowly fail and become too dangerous to inhabit.
That is why the Italian government devised the MOSE project: to decrease the frequency of
high-water events in the city of Venice through the development of barriers at the inlets of the
lagoon.

3. MOSE
MOSE stands for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico or more romantically an
allusion to Moses parting the Red Sea to protect the Hebrews from the Egyptians and water.
MOSE is a collection of interventions, from local to lagoon wide, to respond to high-water
events. Consorzio Venezia Nuova (CVN), on behalf of the Venice Water Authority, is responsible
from the implementation of MOSE (Figure 4). The largest part of the project, 60% of the budget,
is devoted to implanting four mobile barriers at the three inlets to the lagoon. The project is
designed to be a local, diffused, and large-scale engineering intervention. Local projects protect
the exposed “minor” islands while diffused interventions involve natural environments around
the lagoon. Other components include rebuilding and reinforcing the coast, securing polluted
materials, and gathering data about the complex lagoon.

Figure 4. The Consorzio Venezia Nuova office and control room located in the Venetian Arsenale.

3.1 The Mobile Barriers

 Installation of temporary dams at the inlet of the lagoon took years of planning and
engineering. The idea was proposed in the 70s following the flood of 1966, the largest one on
record where the city was inundated with 166 cm of water. The Italian government required
that the defense system could “not significantly modify flushing between the sea and lagoon,
create any visual impact or interfere with the landscape and local economic activities”
(Consorzio Venezia Nuova 2019). These specifications will be revisited later with critiques on
whether these have been achieved. This calls for something that can temporarily be deployed
during flooding events and hidden away when it is not needed.

Figure 5. A diagram of the mobile barriers: gate (1), hinge (2), cassion (3), maintenance entrance (4), and
foundation (5). (CVN 2019).

The final design is a series of 78 gates that lie at the bottom of the three inlets of the lagoon
(Lewin and Scotti 1990). Located at the Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia inlets, the barriers
would completely block off the lagoon from the ocean in a high-water event. The system is
made of two parts the caisson and the gate (Figure 5). The caisson is a large 25,000-ton housing
structure for the gates. Installation of the caissons in the seabed required extreme 1 cm
precision which is challenging when the structure is around the same size as an apartment
building (Enerpac 2016). The caissons get cemented into the bed and then the gates can be
lowered into place. The watertight gates size depends on the inlet. Each gate has a pipe for the
introduction and expulsion of compressed air, measurement devices, anti-corrosive anodes,
and a complex set of hinges. The hinges allow the gate to move out of the caisson when they
are filled with air causing it to rise to the surface (Consorzio Venezia Nuova 2019). They were
designed to resist forces well in excess of what is capable from the underwater marine
environment. To install the gates, a specially made barge called the “jack-up” is used (Figure 6).
It positions itself over the caisson, lowers legs to attach itself to the structure for stability, and
the gates are lowered into place.
Figure 6. The Jack-Up barge used to install and remove gates form the caisson. Notice the four black legs that allow
the structure to support itself on the caisson.

To deploy the gates, the Control Centre constantly monitors weather and will identify storm
surges 5 to 7 days in advance. 36 hours before the event, the decision-making process is
launched, and series of deployment protocols is initiated. The gates are filled with compressed
air, evacuating them of water causing them to rise to the surface. The barriers act as a dam and
keep any water from entering or leaving the bay. Each inlet is equipped with a lock system to
allow the follow of boats and economic activity relative constant during deployment. It is
projected that the locks will only be used around 5 times a year isolated in the winter months
when many of the events occur, but there is skepticism on whether this will be upheld (Fletcher
and Da Mosto 2004).
The regular maintenance of the gates will occur every 5 years with extraordinary maintenance
every 15 years. Maintenance tasks include washing, painting, and fixing any damaged structural
steelwork (CVN 2019). A large problem with the mobile barrier system is the sediment transport
out of the lagoon mentioned earlier. When they are deployed, sediment is going to continue
to travel to the inlet but will be stopped and settle at the gates. The act of deploying and
retracting the gates also transfers energy into the water that will move more sediment. It is
unclear how the barriers will change the amount of sediment lost from the lagoon since they
haven’t been used to their entirety yet. It is known, however, that particles will collect in the
caisson of the gates and so cleaning it out will also be apart of maintenance. How frequently
this dredging will need to occur is unclear.
3.2 Protecting the “Minor” Islands
Many cities beside Venice lie within the Venice lagoon. Being smaller and more exposed,
they can be more susceptible to flooding than the larger city. MOSE has managed many local
interventions in these areas. In many places, the quayside (the pathway located directly on the
open water) needed major work because that is the surface the absorbs the energy form
battering waves. The walkways were raised and reinforced to supplement the large project: the
mobile barriers. Piazza San Marco, which has been raised several times already, cannot be
raised anymore with affecting the architectural style of the buildings around it. The MOSE
project, in 2003, redid all the drainage in the square with the addition of one-way valves and
underground rainwater basins (Fletcher and Da Mosto 2004). With the Piazza flooding to this
day, local interventions are insufficient at addressing the problem for the time scale needed
(Figure 7).

Figure 7. Flooding in Piazza San Marco during high tide in September 2019.

3.3 Rebuilding the Coast

The mobile barrier system relies on the thin barrier islands separating the lagoon from
the ocean. These areas, like coasts all around the world, are experiencing high levels of coastal
erosion due to a rising sea-level. Sediment transport moves sand on the coast in a northern
direction, with new sand continuously traveling up from the south. However, when humans
build on coastal environments or build jetty, this transport is severed, and the littoral begins to
lose sediment without a natural way to replenish it. MOSE coastal protection plan involved
installing a breakwater to absorb wave energy before it hits the coast. Groins were placed along
the coastline that serve as a catchment for sand and prevent it from moving further up the
beach. Also, 10 million m3 of sand was dredged and used to replenish the shore (CVN 2019).
This intervention has a high level of reliability because it’s a common procedure. In some cases,
marram grass and tamarisk where also planted to increase the probability of sediment
retention. However, beach nourishment can be ineffective in some areas due to coastal
morphology. In these areas, the money is better off focused somewhere else (Bezzi, Fontolan,
Nordstrom, Carrer, and Jackson 2009).

3.4 Restoring Natural Habitat

Consorzio Venezia Nuova has been performing lagoon habitat restoration since the
1990s. This diffusive intervention means that areas over the entire lagoon are receiving
improvement. All this work is to combat the erosion altering lagoon morphology. The lagoon
has been deepening and slowly turning into a marine bay because of the large volumes of
sediment lost daily. The delicate ecosystems of salt marshes, which provide protection from
high water, are vanishing. Salt marshes are aquatic environments that lie just above the mean
water line and are home to most of the biodiversity in the Venice lagoon. MOSE has stepped in
and reconstructed 1650 hectares of salt marshes and mudflats (CVN 2019). To reconstruct
these areas, edge reinforcement is used to create a containment area for the new sediment.
Sediment is then dredged into the marsh area filling above the mean water level to
accommodate for compaction (Day et al. 1998). Pioneer species colonize the artificial salt
marsh within the first year, with ‘complete’ integration in 10 years. Sea walls and fences are
also installed in channels that experience large amounts of wave motion, to further prevent
erosion. This like many other parts of the project are met with criticism from scientists and
residents alike.

4. Critiques of MOSE
With large-scale projects like MOSE, decisions are going to be met with opposition form
the public. I will discuss several large critiques returning to the specifications made by the Italian
government: the system could “not significantly modify flushing between the sea and lagoon,
create any visual impact or interfere with the landscape and local economic activities” (CVN
2019). The mobile barrier system costs in excess of €6 billion of the €9 billion budget. Some
people will ask if this money was better off somewhere else. An enormous budget for a wall
with a life span of 100 years at most with projections suggesting ineffectiveness way before
that. In the case of the Venice lagoon, intervention needed to occur at the local, diffused, and
large-scale engineering levels so it was a necessary cost. Without it, Venice’s wouldn’t last long
enough to consider next steps of action.

4.1 The Barrier

The mobile barrier system has a few problems that will need to be addressed in the
coming years once the system is on line. The first being the large amounts of sediment that is
going to settle in the caissons. Dredging the sediment is on the list of maintenance chores, but
will this be enough? A majority of sediment transport occurs during extreme flow events, which
in most cases is when the barriers will be deployed.
Many are concerned about the frequency and duration of barrier deployment (Figure
8). With the limits currently set by CVN, the wall will only be deployed 5 times a year. In the
future, with a 50 cm increase in sea level predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, the barriers will be deployed for 187 days a year, occasionally for weeks at a time (Del
Bello 2018). Oxygen depletion in the stagnant water could an array of negative effects on the
lagoon. Venice does not have any municipal wastewater treatment and most waste goes
through a primary treatment process at the building before being discharged directly in the
canals. While this system ‘works’ with the tide bringing fresh water into the lagoon twice daily,
when the gates are closed for weekends on end the waste remains in place. Human effluent is
high in nitrogen and phosphorous. Large concentrations of it may lead to eutrophication of the
canal and large algae blooms that choke out other aquatic life. There would be a loss of
biodiversity, which could nullify the effects of the habitat restoration mentioned earlier. If this
scenario is achieved, it would violate the specifications defined at the start of the project:
flushing between the sea and lagoon would be significantly altered. On the other hand, studies
are underway to use the barriers to induce a current within the lagoon to avoid anoxic summer
conditions (CVN 2019).

Figure 8. Partial deployment of the mobile barriers.

Credit: Luca Zanon/Corbis via Getty

There is also concern about the effectiveness of the Venice government at running the system
effectively. CVN will only realize the project and run it for two years before it is passed off to be
used by the municipality. With a history of corruption in MOSE and other government works,
the public does not trust their ability to use this tool effectively to avoid the anoxic scenario
mentioned earlier.

4.2 Coastal Nourishment

Coasts around the world are experiencing the same problem as the barrier islands, the
beach is disappearing. Nourishment has the potential to work, but this is reliant on how the
beach is managed following intervention. It increases coastal protection but rarely returns the
dune morphology to what it was before. To optimize nourishment yield, it may be necessary to
follow up with revegetation or fence installation. Wrack removal and beach raking, behavior
that leaves the beach bare and subject to further erosion, was witnessed on the Venice coast
following the intervention (Bezzi et al. 2009). This is in part due to the large tourist population
in the area and resorts tendency to “clean” beach property of organics, a necessary part of a
health coastline. It is only a matter of time till the beach will need replenishment.

4.3 Salt Marsh Restoration

The diffused intervention in the marshes are perhaps the most beneficial to the lagoon
ecosystem. The salt marshes are the best natural defense against flooding with the ability to
retain large amounts of water. Artificial salt marshes, physically and biologically simpler, do
remain distinct from natural ones. Many of them are made of steep edges, sometimes
reinforced with walls, that prevent the development of mudflats and shallows that offer
another form of environment for different species to inhabit (Fletcher and Da Mosto 2004).
Different grasses and birds thrive in the new system, while others decline in population. The
larger problem is that the lagoon ecosystem is temporary. They change with the streams that
meander across them, depositing sediment and forcing flow elsewhere. The lagoon used to
have five inlets 150 years ago. Two of them closed with the deposition of sediment after jetties
where built in front of the northern inlets (Muraca 1982). With every perturbance, the system
reacts to maintain equilibrium and slowly evolves into something different. The natural
environment wants to change but the human environment is relatively unchanging. The
transport of water and sediment needs to be controlled in order to control the future of Venice.
MOSE project may be a losing battle against the elements, but a necessary one for the future
of the city.

5. The Future
The MOSE project has bought Venice time. The barriers have a projected lifespan of 100
years or less and are not a final solution. Other solutions involve injecting expansive material to
lift the city out of the water, with a trial are conducted on the island of Poveglia. This led to
heterogeneous uplift so injecting seawater deeper underground may be a better option.
Looking forward, we must ask “Who is the future of Venice for?” Is it for Venetians, nature, or
the world? As tourism overtakes the city and the Venetian pollution dwindles, the city feels
further from the traditional Venice that captured the world to begin with. There needs to be a
socio-economic intervention with inhabitants as well as an environmental one to help preserve
their way of life.
The natural environments of the lagoon tend to fall to the wayside, but it is crucial to the
success of Venice. UNESCO gave the title of World Heritage Site to “Venice and its Lagoon”, the
future of the city is bound to the future of the lagoon. It is evident that the natural environment
of the lagoon does need to change slightly to be preserved, but it is a small price to pay.
All the world has a stake in the future of Venice. “Venice symbolizes the people’s victorious
struggle against the elements as they managed to master a hostile nature” (UNESCO 1987). The
lagoon has challenged its inhabitants from hundreds of years and yet the city remains (Figure
9). MOSE is just another form of protection in modern times. The harmonious relationship
between natural and built environments in the Venice lagoon is an example for the rest of the
world. With the threat of Global Climate Change at everyone’s doorstep, our solution must
work with nature and not against it.
Figure 9. Previously, Venetians have filled in the ground and moved higher ground to combat flooding. The second
door is also reinforced with a water barrier.

6. Works Cited
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Foredune Restoration: Practices and Constraints along the Venetian Shoreline, Italy. Journal of Coastal Research.
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