Marco Ballarin is a 36 years old architect from Venice. He takes us through the canals and the lagoon on his boat to discover the future of his beloved city.
According to the IPCC, in 2100 the average sea level will be 1,10 meter higher than today. For Venetians, this would mean being constantly under water.
Marco takes us to visit people who are deeply tied to Venice – a fisherman, an urbanist, an engineer, a director of a museum, and a climatologist. They all agree that the city is rapidly changing, high tides are much more frequent, the water is warmer, and something has to be done to save Venice from sinking.
Marco sails off to MOSE, the giant publicly funded dam designed to protect the city from high water. After 16 years, it still doesn’t work. And it has tripled its cost up to 6 billion euros, partially funded by the EU. Experts who have been studying the project since the beginning tell us that, due to sea level rise, the dam’s capability to save the city won’t last more than 40 years.
The Italian government has no long term plan under discussion. But people of the lagoon are talking about a possible solution, and Marco wants to see it. Poveglia, a small island with similar problems to the Unesco world heritage city, was saved from sinking 40 years ago.
Part of it was lifted by injecting water under the soil. “It was an experiment”, as the engineer who was in charge of the project tells us, “but it worked”. Now, the same idea might save Venice from destruction. But the risks are very high.