Overview
- Led by the University of Salento, a peer‑reviewed Scientific Reports paper published Thursday lays out four choices: add movable barriers, build ring dikes, close the lagoon with a super levee, or relocate key assets inland.
- The study finds Venice’s MOSE floodgates can cope with roughly 1.25 meters of sea‑level rise before frequent closures and higher malfunction risk make the system insufficient.
- The authors put ring dikes at an estimated $600 million to $5.3 billion, a lagoon‑closing levee at more than $35 billion, and large‑scale relocation near $100 billion to $118 billion.
- Relocating monuments and leaving the lowest areas could become unavoidable only under extreme multi‑meter rise linked to Antarctic ice‑sheet collapse projected in high‑emissions scenarios.
- Planning needs to begin now because major defenses take 30 to 50 years to deliver, and recent experience with 31 MOSE lifts between October 2023 and April 2024 shows growing pressure from high water.