Italians trying to keep Venice above water

The Italian lagoon city's famed St. Mark's Square is now flooded more than 100 times a year, compared to around seven times a year a century ago. That makes the walkways placed along some of the city's submerged alleys and squares more than necessary.

Some predict that the city could disappear altogether over the next century as ice from the poles melts and ocean and sea levels rise.

“Venice has been experiencing the effects of climate change long before other cities in the world,” Elena Zombardi of the Consorzio Venezia Nuova — the consortium appointed by the Italian state for safeguarding the city — told the German Press Agency dpa.

Since the early 1900s the city has sunk by 23 centimeters, in part due to subsidence — the natural sinking of the lagoon's soil levels — a situation exacerbated by the extraction of ground water in the nearby mainland industrial areas of Porto Marghera and Mestre.

But almost half of the sinking, experts say, can be attributed to surging sea water levels, also caused by climate change, such as global warming.

The Mose (Moses) project, managed by the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, is, to date, the Italian state's most concerted effort to save Venice. However it has been dogged by delays and controversy.

A play on the name of the Biblical figure who parted the Red Sea, and an Italian acronym for Experimental Electro-mechanical Module, the Mose consists of towering, movable barriers designed to rise from the seabed and prevent flooding.

Finally approved in 2003 and estimated to cost the Italian state some 4.3 billion euros (6.3 billion dollars), the Mose is being championed, albeit with some dissident voices, by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government.

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