1. Venice Steven Dutch University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

3. Keeping Dry • City built on wood pilings • Deforestation of east coast of Adriatic • Piles in anoxic setting, do not decay • Many still intact after centuries • Foundations of Stone • River Diversion to prevent silting of lagoon

4. Heart of Venice

5. St. Mark’s Square

6. St. Mark’s Basilica

12. Grand Canal and Rialto Bridge

13. Bridge of Sighs

14. Future Venice?

21. If everything beneath Venice is full of water, how can extracting water make Venice sink?Wouldn’t sea water just replace whatever is taken out?

22. Answer: Artesian Wells

23. The Big Picture

24. Water Drawdown by 1975

25. And Venice Sinks…

26. Rising Waters

27. So What’s a Few Inches? • Venice doesn’t have a lot of inches to spare • Acqua alta (High Water) during storm tides and spring tides • Persistent flooding of lower stories • Salt water attack on masonry, metal • Add to other natural sinking • We want Venice to last for centuries

28. Underwater Mortgage

29. Saving Venice Stop Pumping Wells • Halted in 1960’s Subsidence and Sea Level Rise • Barriers at Lagoon Mouth What About Large Sea Level Change? • Dikes? • Raise or Relocate Prize Structures? • Abandon?

30. “Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky” • “Dust in the Wind,” Kansas “Nothing lasts forever, not even the earth and sky” • Geology