MOSE
The project is an integrated system consisting of rows of mobile gates, installed on the seafloor at the Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia inlets, that can be raised to temporarily seal off the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during acqua alta high tides.
[5][6][7] On 3 October 2020, the MOSE was activated for the first time in the occurrence of a high tide event, preventing some of the low-lying parts of the city (in particular piazza San Marco) from being flooded.
[9] Before the acronym was used to describe the entire flood protection system, MOSE referred to the 1:1 scale prototype of a gate that had been tested between 1988 and 1992 at the Lido inlet.
The measures already completed or underway along the coastline and in the lagoon are the most important environmental defense, restoration, and improvement program ever implemented by the Italian State.
These measures are extremely complex, particularly in urban settings such as Venice and Chioggia where the raising must take account of the delicate architectural and monumental context.
The two sluices (Vigo and Santa Maria) are equal, 18 m long, 3.3 wide and 80 cm thick; in case of threatening tides, they are raised in eight minutes using hydraulic motors.
The babyMose, as well as the other interventions of protection and urban redevelopment implemented in Chioggia in recent years, was carried out by the Magistrate of the Waters of Venice, through the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, together with the municipal administration.
[10][11] The aim of MOSE is to protect the lagoon, its towns, villages, and inhabitants along with its iconic historic, artistic, and environmental heritage from floods, including extreme events.
Today, towns and villages in the lagoon are an average of 23 centimetres (9.1 in) lower with respect to the water level than at the beginning of the 1900s and each year, thousands of floods cause serious problems for the inhabitants as well as deterioration of architecture, urban structures and the ecosystem.
"MOSE consists of rows of mobile gates on the seabed at the three inlets that can be raised to temporarily seal off the lagoon from the sea during high tide.
The Ministry subsequently acquired documents presented during the call for tender and passed them to a group of experts commissioned to draw up a project to preserve the hydraulic balance of the lagoon and protect Venice from floods (the "Progettone" of 1981).
798/1984) emphasised the need for a unified approach to safeguarding measures, set up a committee for policy, coordination and control of these activities (the "Comitatone", chaired by the President of the Council of Ministers and consisting of representatives of the competent national and local authorities and institutions) and entrusted design and implementation to a single body, the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, recognising its ability to manage the safeguarding activities as a whole.
In this context, between 1988 and 1992, experiments were carried out on a prototype gate (MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, hence the name MOSE) and in 1989, a conceptual design for the mobile barriers was drawn up.
This was completed in 1992 and subsequently approved by the Higher Council of Public Works then subjected to an Environmental Impact Assessment procedure and further developed as requested by the Comitatone.
The sites have been set up on temporary areas of water in order to limit occupation of the land adjacent to the inlets and reduce as far as possible the effect on activities taking place there.
Outside the inlet, a 1,300-metre (4,300 ft) long curved breakwater designed to attenuate tidal currents and define a basin of calm water to protect the lock has been completed.
Work has been completed to construct a small craft harbour with double lock to guarantee transit of a large number of fishing vessels when the gates are in operation.
The sea-side basin has been temporarily drained and sealed for use as a construction site to fabricate the gate housing structures, as for the Lido north inlet barrier.
[19] Since 2011, the MOSE control centre and management functions for the lagoon system have been located in the Venice Arsenal, symbol of the former trading and military might of the historic Serenissima or "Serene Republic".
As home to MOSE management and control the arsenal will receive a new lease of life after years of abandonment, allowing its renaissance as a place of innovation and production, with important economic repercussions for the city and local area.
[24] Criticisms of the MOSE project, which environmentalists and certain political forces have opposed since its inception, relate to the costs to the Italian State of construction, management, and maintenance, which are said to be much higher than those for alternative systems employed by the Netherlands and England to resolve similar problems.
In addition, according to the project's opponents, the monolithic integrated system is not "gradual, experimental and reversible" as required by the Special Law for the Safeguarding of Venice.
The NO MOSE front also emphasises what could be a number of critical points in the structure of the system and its inability to cope with predicted rises in sea level.
Over the years, nine appeals have been presented, eight of which have been rejected by the TAR (Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale, meaning the Regional Administrative Tribunal) and the Council of State.
Here, part of the MOSE gate housing caissons will be made using processes which, according to the local authority, could damage a site of special natural interest.
Following a report of 5 March 2004 by the Venetian MP Luana Zanella, on 19 December 2005 the European Commission opened an infraction procedure against Italy for "pollution of the habitat" of the lagoon.
The European Environmental Commission Directorate General considers that as it has "neither identified nor adopted—in relation to the impacts on the area 'IBA 064-Venice Lagoon' resulting from construction of the MOSE project—appropriate measures to prevent pollution and deterioration of the habitat, together with harmful disturbance of birds with significant consequences in the light of the objectives of article 4 of EEC Directive 79/409, the Italian Republic has not fulfilled its obligations under Article 4, Paragraph 4, of EEC Directive 79/409 of the Council of 2 April 1979 on the conservation of wild birds."
[citation needed] In 2014, 35 people, including Giorgio Orsoni, the Mayor of Venice, were arrested in Italy on corruption charges in connection with the MOSE Project.
Orsoni was accused of receiving illicit funds from the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, the consortium behind the construction of the project, which he then used in his campaign to be elected mayor.
[citation needed] While MOSE's supporters say it can handle the threat of rising waters from global warming, others have doubted the project can face this challenge.
