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Venetians are pondering raising their entire city
- moi2388 3y agoWell, you can’t raise a city without raising taxes, so let’s see what the Italians will end up doing. Hint: probably nothing but drinking espresso.
- ggm 3y agoSeems reasonable. If pumping groundwater out caused some of the subsidence then pumping water in should reverse some of it. Berlin is continually drained. Maintenance of cities by hydrostatic pressure is kind of a thing anyway.
- junon 3y agoBerlin is still sinking though. Slowly but.. surely.
- ggm 3y agoOh No.. the Berlin mountain is shrinking! Europe's highest peak is at risk!
- c00lio 3y agoForget Berlin. The Ruhr area, biggest continuous settlement in Germany, with roughly 20 million inhabitants (of which maybe 5 million would be affected), is below its local water table because "the dwarves delved too greedily and too deep". So now they are spending 100Mio per year on pumping away the ground water, probably forever: https://www.worldtimes-online.com/imfocus/105-pumpen-im-ruhrgebiet-werden-ewig-laufen-m%C3%BCssen.html https://www.worldtimes-online.com/imfocus/105-pumpen-im-ruhr... https://www.amusingplanet.com/2021/03/the-pumps-that-keep-germany-dry.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2021/03/the-pumps-that-keep-ge...
- netsharc 3y agoOr in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LseK5gp66u8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LseK5gp66u8
- Etrnl_President 3y agoWhat are they sinking about?
- ggm 3y agohttps://archive.is/vC9sJ https://archive.is/vC9sJ
- jxf 3y ago> For all its technological whizzyness, the system has downsides. Cost is one. Mr Redi reckons each raising of the barrier costs about €150,000 (other estimates are higher). Great article but I'm really curious about this number. If the alternative to raising the barrier is "the entire city floods" then that... seems like a pretty good trade? Also, nobody talks about the cost of raising and lowering a drawbridge. The whole point of it is to be raised or lowered, just like the barrier.
- LaurensBER 3y agoThe issue is not the cost at the moment. The real issue is, what are we going to do in 50 years? Invest even more money to buy another 10-50 years or will we have to admit defeat? If there's even a chance of admitting defeat that will be felt in property prices and investments a lot sooner than those 50 years.
- ta1243 3y agoVenice is a small city compared to Jakarta, and they're moving Jakarta. However I'm not sure if they will succeed in their plans with Jakarta, sure the big companies will move, but moving a city is not a trivial thing to do.
- rippercushions 3y agoThey're building a showcase city a thousand kilometers away in a different island as the new capital, but they're not relocating the 20+ million who live in Jakarta.
- Fatboyrunning 3y agoAfter visiting Venice a week ago I say do whatever it takes! Save the city! It's a floating wonderland, even though its a bit stinky.
- SecretDreams 3y agoSoso smelly.
- 11235813213455 3y agoIt's a global problem, and tourism is part of it, overconsumerism, high-polluting lifestyles Let's stop acting short-term
- m0llusk 3y agoIt's a modern problem. Below the current city are the remains of several other cities that previously sank into the muck. The problem only became difficult to manage when we stopped rebuilding over sunken structures and started continually investing in extremely complex and heavy structures that we are hesitant to write off.
- shjake 3y agoProblem is that without those old buildings there are no real practical reasons to live in Venice or build anything on top.
- gryzzly 3y agoLet’s stop corporations and governments from acting short-term.
- 11235813213455 3y agoit's 50% governments, 50% individual actions the rest follows
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- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- hypertele-Xii 3y agoLet it sink, make it an underwater tourist attraction. Modern day Atlantis theme park. Pressurize select spaces, build glass tube walkways, rent diving gear and plant fake treasure that can be exchanged for gifts.
- evrimoztamur 3y agoYou're probably just jesting but... people live there.
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- monsieurbanana 3y agoProbably? There's some people taking the comment seriously and that kinda worries me
- hypertele-Xii 3y agoIsn't every amusement park in the world built upon land on which people used to live? They don't build them out in the desert, do they? Well maybe Las Vegas.
- ExoticPearTree 3y agoSeems like you played too much Bioshock :)
- jagaerglad 3y agoWe are talking about a city that a quarter million people call home, not an amusement park that needs to adapt to changing conditions
- rippercushions 3y agoOnly around 50,000 of them live in the old bit we think of us as Venice, and the number is dropping steadily. The rest live on the mainland (Mestre).
- blarg1 3y agoI don't see how destroying it will help.
- MeteorMarc 3y agoOne could also close the entire Mediterranean: https://phys.org/news/2014-08-gibraltar-sea.html https://phys.org/news/2014-08-gibraltar-sea.html
- lnsru 3y agoHonestly I think, such projects must be funded instead of stupid thing called development aid: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_aid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_aid Because money does not solve poverty problems. Especially wiring them directly to corrupt governments.
- 11235813213455 3y agoIt's not worth because the areas under sea level will have even higher temperature and dryer to dersertic climate https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/the-worst-dam-idea-in-the-world https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/the-worst-dam-ide...
- vidarh 3y agoWriting an article about that without mentioning the Antlantropa idea is pretty sloppy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa
- bradleyjg 3y agoI remember when they put this project out to bid the two finalists were a local consortium and a Dutch consortium that had extensive experience in that nation’s waterworks. Hope they made the right choice.
- closetkantian 3y agoI misread this as 'razing', hahaha.
- ajdude 3y agoI'm glad I'm not the only one
- foobarbecue 3y agoMe too! I was like woah, I guess they gave up.
- neilv 3y ago> * When a high tide begins, machines that consume enough electricity to power “a small town”, as a technician puts it, compress air that is blasted into each floodgate. As seawater is forced out, the floodgates rise into nearly vertical positions. The resulting barrier holds back the Adriatic until the tide retreats.* This sounded impressive to me, like a micro version of some disaster science fiction, in which massive engineering effort is thrown at defending against some planetary-scale existential threat. Do we have enough will to tackle climate change itself? Or the Cascasian subduction zone earthquake-tsunami that would wipe out much of US Pacific Northwest metro areas?
- konschubert 3y agoCheck out the Osterschelde damn in the Netherlands
- stavros 3y agoI wonder how much we add to climate change when we use this anti-climate-change system.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoIt’s really hard seeing a tsunami take out Seattle, given that there are tall mountains between it and the Pacific Ocean, the tsunami would need to develop in the sound, which should be impossible. We can still be taken out by a earth quake or maybe a mudslide when Rainer erupts and it’s glacier melts?
- neilv 3y agoAs a born Portlander, I'd be doubly annoyed for it to be obliterated while Seattle is left intact.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoI’m actually a born portlander also (thanks to Tektronix). Since Portland isn’t really on the coast it should be ok, right?
- jvanveen 3y agoSome more background: https://www.curbed.com/2020/12/venices-usd6-billion-mose-floodgates-may-not-be-enough.html https://www.curbed.com/2020/12/venices-usd6-billion-mose-flo... https://www.lastampa.it/esteri/la-stampa-in-english/2017/10/12/news/venice-and-mose-story-of-a-failure-1.34401212/ https://www.lastampa.it/esteri/la-stampa-in-english/2017/10/...
- sohkamyung 3y agoHere's what the system look like when put into action, as seen by Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellites in 2021. [1] [1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149151/venice-holds-back-the-adriatic-sea https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149151/venice-holds...
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- simonebrunozzi 3y agoI'm a Venetian since 2020, and I can say that I know a bit about these engineering and environmental issues. First, the €5.5B cost of the MOSE is mostly due to corruption. Several people have been investigated, and some condemned, but it's pretty clear to everyone that as much as 2/3rd of the cost can be attributed in one way to another to corruption. Second, no one in Venice is talking about raising the city by pumping something in its underground. No one. This whole article is fabricated by finding a couple of obscure academics willing to imagine a weird, unlikely scenario. There is no political will nor agreement on what to do to fight sea level rising. At least for the moment. Despite all of this, I love being here, and I hope I'll be able to enjoy the city for the next few decades. Maybe some fancy and intelligent solution will show up eventually, down the road. I'm not too hopeful.
- zuprau 3y ago> no one in Venice is talking about raising the city I see a lot of results: https://www.google.it/search?q=sollevare+venezia https://www.google.it/search?q=sollevare+venezia People have been talking about this for decades, but it doesn't seem to be very popular now, especially since MOSE appears to be working at the moment. There's even reportage by Le Iene https://www.iene.mediaset.it/2019/news/mose-alziamo-venezia-centimetri_606329.shtml https://www.iene.mediaset.it/2019/news/mose-alziamo-venezia-...
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- oh_sigh 3y agoOut of curiosity, why move to Venice? I guess 2020 would be a great time due to the dearth of tourists, but otherwise the city seems to be owned by tourists rather than the locals. Is there real hidden life going on there? How does one hook up with the local/long term residents?
- coldtea 3y agoWell, one could very well go there to be working with the tourists and short term residents...
- FriedPickles 3y agoI highly recommend the NOVA episode "Saving Venice" on this topic. MOSE is a marvel of engineering and makes me feel proud to be human. https://www.pbs.org/video/saving-venice-zq9di2/ https://www.pbs.org/video/saving-venice-zq9di2/
- personlurking 3y agoHere's a month-old YT video [11m] on this issue. Top comment is from an engineer on the project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hKXOfQ6JmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hKXOfQ6JmE > I am an engineer, I live in Venice and I do work on this project. The gates might have a lot of drawbacks, but at least they are not visible. The lagoon of Venice is practically a natural reserve, especially in the vicinity of the sea inlets: the gate project in the Rotterdam style was rejected exactly for this reason (and the inlet in Lido is almost 2 km wide, compared to the 0,4 km of the dutch project). The gates themselves are huge, they can easily withstand a tide of +3 m and need very little modification to go above this threshold. The main concerns lie with the environmental impact of their activation: firstly because they consume a lot of energy, secondly because they impact on the vital interaction of the lagoon with the Adriatic: in the worst case scenario, it is expected that by the end of the century, flooding above the 110 cm threshold will occur for 180 days per year, thus this problem needs to be carefully handled. For the concerns about the navigation and trade, an offshore port (with an underwater train connection) is being studied, an idea which could also remove all the container and cruise ships which are still allowed to enter the very shallow water of the lagoon.
- AlbertCory 3y agoChicago was raised in the 19th century, and in some cases buildings were raised while people were inside going about their business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
- telesilla 3y agoAnd even turned one 90 degrees while everyone worked inside without interruption. https://www.openculture.com/2021/04/when-the-indiana-bell-building-was-rotated-90-while-everyone-worked-inside-in-1930.html https://www.openculture.com/2021/04/when-the-indiana-bell-bu...
- Animats 3y agoSo was Galveston, Texas.[1] By 17 feet. [1] https://www.galvestonhistorycenter.org/research/grade-raising https://www.galvestonhistorycenter.org/research/grade-raisin...
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoOh … raising the city. When I first glanced at the headline, it read “razing” the city. Jokes aside, it’s a serious issue, but Venice is just one of many coastal cities so affected. New Orleans residents can tell you about a relatively recent experience they had. Someone once mentioned to me, that if you wanted to see a government agency that was not politicizing climate change, look to the US Navy. They have trillions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure that could get swamped.
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- scotty79 3y agoIs the lowest level of multi-level cyberpunk cities canonically water?