Venice’s MOSE Flood Dams: A Crucial Step in Flood Prevention
This weekend, Venice took the first step in preventing the high tide from flooding the city centre by deploying its new sea dams in an unofficial test drive – even though there’s still plenty of work that needs to be done.
Acqua alta floods are sadly a recurrence in Venice’s lagoon, and that same warning had been raised over the weekend when continuous rains brought weather alerts and damages throughout Northern Italy. On Saturday, October 3, Venice’s city council decided to lift the MOSE.
The MOSE Project (which stands for MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, or Experimental Electromechanical Module) consists of a system of mobile dams located around the lagoon, which can be raised when the need arises to isolate the city from the Adriatic Sea and protect it from high tide.
Construction for the MOSE dams began in 2003, and the project took seventeen years and 7 billion euros to complete. The 78 bright yellow barriers that make up the system were tested for the first time earlier this year. While the MOSE held back the high tide on Saturday, it failed to do so on Monday. The tide was lower than the MOSE deployment threshold, allowing the city centre to end up flooded, including Saint Mark’s Square and Saint Mark’s Basilica.
The general consensus is that Venice certainly took a step in the right direction, but there’s still work to be done and calibrations required so that the MOSE can be an effective tool to protect the city. For further details regarding Venice’s unique dam system, visit the MOSE Project’s official website here.
