SCIENCE AND POLITICS FOR THE SAFEGUARDING OF VENICE

Abstract

Venice as an iconic place and a paradigm of immense historical and cultural values at risk. The recurrent flooding of the city center is the most debated symptom of the frailty of Venice, but the city and the surrounding lagoon are subject to several environmental hazards, from pollution to exploitation of natural resources to tourism overpressure. This article aims at illustrating how the alliance between Science and Politics in Venice was fundamental to tackle the various environmental crises the city has been facing since the mid-20^th century. To this purpose, the intertwining between legislative interventions and scientific initiatives since the 1980s is analyzed, with a special focus on the answers that Science and Politics has provided to the issues posed by the relative sea-level rise and worsening of flooding statistics (“acqua alta”), a threat that is expected to continue to grow through this century and against which a protective system based on mobile barriers – the MoSE – has recently become operative. Beyond Science and Politics, public opinion is capable to reverberate the discussion on any event in Venice, sometimes with a global mediatic echo. The authors thus discuss how the alliance between Science and Politics in Venice, if kept transparent and rigorous, could achieve a historical value for the grand challenges our Planet and Humanity are undergoing.