Flooding and Environmental Challenges for Venice and its Lagoon
State of Knowledge

A technical volume exploring the prospects for decreasing the level of flooding in and around Venice.

C. A. Fletcher (Edited by), T. Spencer (Edited by)

9780521124140, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 3 December 2009

736 pages
24.6 x 18.9 x 3.4 cm, 1.3 kg

This book was first published in 2005. Time may be running out for Venice. With rising average water levels, the frequency of city flooding is increasing and the threat of a repeat of the November 1966 events, when a violent storm surge took water levels nearly two metres higher than usual, remains. Surrounding the city is a severely degraded lagoon ecosystem. This timely scientific and technical volume synthesises the great wealth and diversity of recent interdisciplinary research on Venice and its Lagoon and the prospects for large engineering interventions to separate the lagoon and sea, as well as other measures in the built environment, discussed at an International Conference, held at Churchill College, Cambridge, in September 2003. The lessons and inferences reported here show how Venice, with its mix of challenges to protect its prestigious cultural heritage within one of the largest coastal wetlands in the Mediterranean, and against a background of pressures brought about by industry, port activities and tourism, share many issues with other areas threatened by coastal flooding, including areas of the Netherlands, the USA and the cities of London and St Petersburg.

Part I. Introduction
Part II. Geological and Environmental Context
Part III. Urban Flooding and the Urban System
Part IV. Large-scale Engineering Solutions to Storm Surge Flooding
Part V. The Venice Lagoon
Part VI. The Venice Lagoon
Part VII. Venice and It's Lagoon
Part VIII. Appendices.

Subject Areas: Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Environmental management [RNF], Deltas, estuaries, coastal regions [RGBP], Limnology [freshwater RBKF], Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]