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Tourists are encouraged to get involved in helping the local community

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Fairbnb.coop - Community Powered Tourism

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With today we start our roundup on social projects that have already joined Fairbnb and that will soon be possible to be supported through our portal.

Venice, as you may know, is a city subjected to an enormous tourist pressure and not always guests and residents of this city treat it with due respect. The Association Masegni & Nizioeti was born with the aim of educating citizens and guests to respect the city and to involve them in concrete actions of cleaning and restoration not only of the immense artistic and monumental heritage of the city but also of more humble and mundane buildings that often come forgotten.

in their words:

Our activity goes in two directions. On one hand, it is aimed at obtaining the preservation and restoration of the cultural, historical and identity heritage, represented by the nizioleti (typical venetian road signs). In this regard, the Association has in fact acted constructively, also at the institutional level, for the correction of errors and inaccuracies in the writing of the nizioleti, asking also and in part obtaining the reuse, in the graphic representation, of the spoken Venetian without double letters, in accordance with the popular oral tradition. On the other hand, the Association is engaged in a fight to combat phenomena such as the contamination, damage and defacement of the city. For years, its members have participated in the national days of Cleaning Day organized by the National Antigraffiti Association, choosing significant places in Venice, defaced by tags that are removed with targeted interventions. Added to these are numerous cleaning interventions aimed at sensitizing public opinion and institutions so that everyone, within their own sphere and task, feels involved and responsible for the decorum and the custody of a unique and extraordinary reality that the World envy.

Together with the representatives of the Association we are deciding the type of intervention for which we will ask the contribution from our users, it could be a defined objective, such as the materials for a cleaning day, or a continuous contribution that allows them to expande their actions all year through.

Another idea we are working on is to facilitate participation of our future Guests in the cleaning days organized by Masegni & Nizioeti in order to involve them even more in the city that will host them even for a few days.

DO YOU HAVE A SOCIAL PROJECT IN YOUR TOWN?

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Do you have projects that could improve the life of residents and help curbing the negative effect of tourism in your town?
Pre register your social project to get funded and receive free grants from fairbnb.coop activity in your town.
No project is too small or too big for fairbnb.coop,
it just need to be have a good plan and to be accountable.

Go ahead, follow the link and pre-register your social project on fairbnb.coop and spread the world to other associations and civic groups.

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Social Projects: Venice, Masegni & Nizioeti | Fairbnb.coop - Community Powered Tourism

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With today we start our roundup on social projects that have already joined Fairbnb and that will soon be possible to be supported through our portal. Venice, as you may know, is a city subjected to an enormous tourist pressure and not always guests and residents of this city treat it with due respect.

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National Geographic report on the injection project

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National Geographic report on the injection project

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If you’re interested in the plan by academics at Padova University to raise Venice by pumping water underneath, watch the other video clip and then read this article.

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Want to save sinking Injecting billions of gallons of seawater could "inflate" porous sediments under the canal-crossed city, causing the Italian city to rise by as much as a foot (about 30 centimeters), scientists say. Venice from rising seas? F ight water with water, a new plan suggests.
(Read "Charlie Chaplin's Venice" from the new issue of National Geographic Traveler.)

Known to Venetians as the acqua alta, or "high water," flooding driven by high tides submerges the lowest 14 percent of the Italian destination four times a year, on average ( interactive map of Venice's flood zones).

And it's only getting worse.

Venice dropped about 5 inches (12 centimeters) between 1950 and 1970, when groundwater was pumped out for industrial uses, according to city data. Currently, though, the city is sinking at a rate of less than two inches (five centimeters) a century, according to a 2002 study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

But even as Venice's descent slows, the surrounding Adriatic Sea is swelling-with the average local sea level predicted to rise by perhaps a foot by the end of this century, said hydrologist Giuseppe Gambolati, a proponent of the seawater-injection method.

(See National Geographic magazine's "Vanishing Venice.")

Under the plan, a dozen wells surrounding Venice in a six-mile (ten-kilometer) circle would pump water into the ground over a ten-year period-nearly 40 billion gallons in all (150 billion liters).

"When you inject water, you cause an expansion of the injected formations," said Gambolati, a hydrologist at the University of Padua in Italy.

"If land is settling, then you offset the settlement and sinking stops. [Once] land is stable, you induce an uplift."

The modest rise could reduce the need for the still-under-construction MOSE floodgate system, aka Project Moses. Segments of the electromechanical system sit on the seabed at each of the Venetian Lagoon's three inlets. MOSE's giant panels are to be inflated to seal off the marshy lagoon when severe floods threaten.

By 2100 MOSE might be needed about 35 times a year if the average local sea level has risen by about 10 or 11 inches (roughly 28 centimeters), according to a 2010 study in the journal Climate Dynamics.

The injection project could reduce that number to 4 times a year, according to a new study co-authored by Gambolati and published in the December 7 edition of the journal Water Resources Research.

For the study, the researchers combined raw seismic data from the 1980s-when oil and gas companies were still allowed to use explosives to delve under the lagoon for geological observation-with more recent data. The result is a 3-D map that depicts the impermeable layer of clay under Venice in unprecedented detail.

That clay, Gambolati said, is key.

"The seawater would be pumped into a number of sandy layers ... between 650 and 1,000 meters' depth [2,133 and 3,280 feet]," he said. "The presence of a clay cover above ensures that the injected seawater will not flow upward. Water will diffuse laterally within the layers it is pumped into."

Used by oil companies, this kind of subsurface fluid injection has previously caused land to rise in California, Canada, and elsewhere, according to a 2010 study.

Civil engineer Ron Wong, an expert in the underground injection of fluids for enhanced petroleum recovery, said the concept of "raising" Venice is definitely feasible if the geology below the city is right.

"We have more than 20 years of experience in Alberta injecting steam or water into the ground, and we have observed a very similar kind of heave, around 30 centimeters [1 foot] of permanent deformation," said Wong, who said heads the University of Calgary's department of civil engineering.

"But it has only worked here in dense sand." Wong said the study appears to show that the ground below Venice has similar properties.

In Alberta, Wong added, high-tech monitoring tools precisely track land as it slowly rises, to make sure the uplift is uniform. "If the heave is not uniform, you can cause a lot of damage on the ground," he said.

The University of Padua's Gambolati said his team's modeling study suggests that the entire city of Venice can be raised in unison to avoid any structural damage that might be caused if some sections rise higher than others.

If the injection project is greenlighted, it would take only a year or two to get the decade-long pumping process underway, Gambolati estimates.

The plan is also economical, he stressed, certainly in comparison with the MOSE system.

"We did not make a detailed breakdown of the cost," Gambolati said. "However, offhand, the overall cost could be expected over the range of 200 to 300 million Euros [about U.S. $255 to $383 million].

"Consider that the planned cost of MOSE, as of today, is five billion euros [six billion dollars]," and that's before you factor in maintenance costs, he said.

So far, Venice's sometimes submerged streets and squares aren't dimming tourist enthusiasm. In 2011, for example, more than 20 million tourists visited the city, generating some two billion dollars in declared revenue.

The novelty of the acqua alta, in fact, might be one of the city's draws, said journalist Erla Zwingle, an American who's called Venice home for 17 years.
For Venetians, Floods Are "a Small Nuisance"
"My husband, who is a native Venetian, said that if the MOSE system were operating, they'd have to open it periodically to let the flood waters flow, because the tourists love it so much," said Zwingle, who writes a blog about everyday life in Venice.

"They take off their shoes and wade into the Piazza San Marco (picture) and take pictures of one another. To them, it's kind of fun."

Even when waters are high, many parts of the city don't flood. Those that do can often be traversed via several miles of passerelle, raised boards laid down by the city. Many hotels keep stores of galoshes or boots on hand.

The floods, added Zwingle, are relatively short-usually lasting a few hours till the tide recedes-and predictable. "It doesn't happen all the time or even most of the time."

The acqua alta season generally runs from September to April, and if a flood is going to happen, "it's most likely to happen when the moon is full or new, when there's a southeast wind, and/or when there's low atmospheric pressure. It doesn't strike out of the blue," Zwingle said.

"People know in advance, so it's easy to deal with and low impact. It comes up and it goes back down."

To residents, Zwingle adds, flooding is neither fun nor a catastrophe-just a part of life in Venice.

"It's an inconvenience, a small nuisance, but people are used to it all," she said.

"Venetians are the only people who are not excited by the high water. A resident will just pull on his or her boots and pursue a normal schedule," she said.

In fact, Zwingle said, Venetians are more likely to get worked up over more familiar civic concerns, like lack of municipal funding and medical care or failing schools.

"Venice has been here for 1,500 years, and they've had high water for centuries," she said. "If it were such a problem for daily life that it couldn't be faced anymore, people would have moved away long before now."

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Injections Could Lift Venice 12 Inches, Study Suggests

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Want to save sinking Injecting billions of gallons of seawater could "inflate" porous sediments under the canal-crossed city, causing the Italian city to rise by as much as a foot (about 30 centimeters), scientists say. Venice from rising seas? F ight water with water, a new plan suggests.

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This news report talks about how the shops are changing in Venice and why this is making more locals move away.

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The Impact Of Mass Tourism In Venice - Venezia Autentica

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Why its more difficult to find a home in Venice

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Why its more difficult to find a home in Venice

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This article explains who is buying property in Venice and what they are doing with it. (Erin - you should read this!)

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In Venice, 70% of the purchases are by foreigners!

Posted on by CaDoroImmobiliare in Uncategorized

Approximately 70% of the sales of residential property in Venice involves international buyers. The real estate market trend in the lagoon observes that British buyers stand out, making up the most numerous group with 25%, followed by, among the foreign investors, French citizens (20%) and Germans (10%).

Fifteen percent of all the transactions concern buyers who are residents in countries, such as Holland, Argentina, the United States and Switzerland. "The majority of the buyers purchase the real estate as investments and to generate revenue through holiday rentals," explain the authors of the research. "The market is dominated by investors, only one-fourth of whom purchase the residential properties in Venice for private use.

The most costly addresses can be found on the Grand Canal: the apartments with a view on the higher floors of the buildings are those with the highest prices, up to €20,000 per square meter.

In addition, among the most costly are the apartments with a view on the Rialto Bridge or in the immediate vicinity of St. Mark's Square. Even the addresses along the Venice Lido are highly requested."

The Venetian real estate market seems destined for a steady growth; the high level of interest by private buyers and foreign investors translates into the fact that the prices for residential real estate in Venice will continue to increase in the future. The number of properties being offered in good positions is limited. The low interest rates in Europe and the recovery of the Italian economy will be factors that contribute to a rise in prices in the coming years."

Some plans to limit the access to tourists and to reduce the congestion in the heavily trafficked areas could make Venice even more desirable. Those who work in the area are more cautious in evaluating the prospects: "Areas like the Lido have suffered a decline in prices estimated at 40%, and a sharp turnaround is still not being seen," explains Raffaele Dedemo, Fiaip. "Many properties are being offered on the market at prices far from the reality and end up remaining unsold for long periods of time."

Read more http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/real-estate/2016-04-13/real-estate-100816.php?uuid=ACP9Ki6C

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In Venice, 70% of the purchases are by foreigners! | Ca' D'oro Immobiliare

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Approximately 70% of the sales of residential property in Venice involves international buyers. The real estate market trend in the lagoon observes that British buyers stand out, making up the most numerous group with 25%, followed by, among the foreign investors, French citizens (20%) and Germans (10%). Fifteen

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The Italian government has announced it will be rerouting cruise ships away from central parts of Venice. This move follows a long campaign by residents to stop large ships from docking in the Unesco-listed city.

Italy's transport minister Danilo Toninelli said on Wednesday that cruise ships would be diverted away from their current route, reported the Financial Times, therefore banning them from entering the historic grand canal.

Toninelli said he had been looking at temporary ports "to avoid witnessing more invasions of the Giudecca by these floating palaces, with the scandals and risks that they bring.''

In 2018, 502 cruise ships brought 1.56 million passengers to Venice, contributing to the overcrowding already swamping the narrow canals and walkways.

Meanwhile, there are environmental concerns about the impact of ships passing through the Venetian Lagoon and along the Giudecca Canal.

Credit: Getty

In June, a collision between 2,150-passenger ocean cruise ship MSC Opera and Uniworld river cruise ship The River Countess (in which four passengers were injured) heightened calls for a ban. Italy's environment minister Sergio Costa tweeted that the incident confirmed ships must not pass the Giudecca area.

As of next month, some cruise ships will dock at the Fusina and Lombardia terminals away from the city centre but still within the lagoon. However, from next year a third of cruise ships will be rerouted away from the city.

A plan to reroute cruise ships dates back to 2017 when an Italian governmental committee decided that cruise vessels weighing 96,000 tonnes or more would be prevented from docking in the lagoon in front of St Mark's Square.

Under this plan, larger ships would need to head to a terminal in the industrial port of Marghera on the mainland. Smaller ships, those of 55,000 tonnes or less, would be allowed to continue along the current route.

But works on this new route were expected to take up to four years, and so ships have continued to dock in front of St Mark's Square.

Andy Harmer, Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) UK and Ireland director, said: "There is currently no ban in place preventing cruise ships from visiting Venice. CLIA cruise lines have been actively engaged in discussions for a considerable time about using the Vittoria Emanuele Canal as the preferred alternative solution.

"We have been cooperative in simulations and studies that supported the Comitatone [the inter-ministerial committee for planning, coordinating and monitoring Safeguarding of the Venice Lagoon] recommendation. CLIA urges all parties in Venice to reach a conclusion to start the preparation work to prepare the Vittoria Emanuele Canal so we can begin to reroute the larger ships.

"The cruise industry has worked diligently with the Mayor of Venice, the Veneto Region, the Port Authority and many others to find viable solutions to allow larger cruise ships access to the Marittima berths without transiting the Giudecca Canal.

Credit: Getty

"We are in agreement with the solution developed by Comitatone in 2017 to utilize the Vittorio Emanuele Canal as the best and most prudent means to move larger cruise ships away from the Giudecca. CLIA cruise line members welcome and will support the urgent implementation of this solution."

Toninelli's announcement on Wednesday follows Venice's call last week for other port authorities to unite against cruise ship problems.

Pino Musolino, chairman of the northern Adriatic Sea port authority, wrote to eight other port authorities asking them to "join forces" to oblige cruise lines to "launch ships compatible with our structures and the environment".

Other popular European cruise ports are seeking to curb cruise ship calls, too.

Last month, CLIA and the City of Dubrovnik signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to preserve and protect the cultural heritage of the city through responsible tourism management. This will include managing the number of cruise calls to the ancient city.

Barcelona's mayor has also pledged to restrict the number of cruise ships that can call in the Spanish city.
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Venice bans large cruise ships from docking at its historic city centre

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The Italian government has announced it will be rerouting cruise ships away from central parts of Venice. This move follows a long campaign by residents to stop large ships from docking in the Unesco-listed city.

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(CNN) - Strolling down a tiny street in Venice's San Marco district, a couple pauses in front of a hand-crafted leather goods stall, one of hundreds of "authentically Venetian" shops lining the cobblestone streets of the city's tourist thoroughfares. Holding hands, they stop to embrace in front of the famed Grand Canal.

"Watch out where you're going!" a hurried passerby barks at the couple, who are oblivious to the oncoming foot traffic. "This is Europe, walk on the right side!"

It's a scene frequently replayed across the city, and one that's now almost as famous as Venice's medieval piazzas, its architecture and artworks and its winding waterways echoing to the songs of gondoliers.

Venice received more than 36 million international tourists in 2017, a near 10% rise on the previous year. While travelers fuel the city's economy, they're also the primary contributors to Venice's biggest problem: overcrowding.

From April to October, an estimated 32,000 cruise ship passengers disembark here daily, according to the Port Authority. In August, an additional 465,100 day-trippers make their way to the city, adding to the chaos of an additional 2.2 million tourists who will stay overnight, according to recent National Tourism Agency figures.

Many Venetians believe that everyone should have a chance to experience the beauty of their city, but say that a constant swell of tourists is ruining the experience for everyone.

Short visits put a strain on the city's overstretched infrastructure, and cheap Airbnb rentals have driven up the cost of accommodation and living conditions for locals, some of whom have decided to leave altogether.

Tourists have been visiting Venice since the early 18th century and have always been a vital part of the cityscape. But how to keep that sustainable and intact for the future is a big question, says Luca Velo, a researcher at the University of Venice.

"The main issue today is the lack of general vision for the future of the city," he tells CNN Travel. "We don't actually know how much mass tourism will impact the future, for ourselves and for the extraordinary environment that we have here."

But for years, local authorities argue they've been taking those steps.

In November 2017, Italy's government announced a ban on cruise ships weighing over 100,000 tones from entering from Venice's Grand Canal, instead diverting them to Marghera, a neighboring industrial area.

Last spring, city authorities brought in turnstiles designed to restrict th e movement of visitors in some of the city's most crowded arteries over a long holiday weekend.

And in the high season, English-speaking police-assistants, known as "decorum angels," can be found patrolling some of the busiest areas in town, warning tourists who dare to dip their feet in the canals or who are caught eating or drinking in an undesignated area -- that they could be facing a fine of up to €500 (about $585).

Now, Venice is planning to take its most controversial step yet.

In September, a new measure requiring day-trippers to pay an entrance fee into the city of up to $11 (€10) will come into effect. Tourists overnighting in Venice will be exempt as a city tax is already included in the hotel rate. Residents, some 30,000 commuters, students and children under six will also not be required to pay.

Simone Venturini, Venice's deputy mayor and councilor for economic development, tells CNN Travel that the money will go towards costs such as waste and security management.

Day-trippers who benefit from city services without spending much inside the city itself will, he says, "at least leave a contribution that will allow the municipality to lessen costs that currently fall on the shoulders of the citizens."

"We believe those who comes here should stay a few days and experience [the city] slowly, lose themselves in the canals of Venice and appreciate all the islands and places that are perhaps less famous to San Marco at the Rialto bridge," Venturini says, adding that tourism "must be managed not [by] closing the gates and blocking the city, but by incentivizing quality tourism."

While the authorities believe the fee will help make the city more sustainable for tourists and locals alike, others say it's an undemocratic, exclusionary system that also draws parallels to an amusement park.

Across Europe, cities are struggling to tackle overtourism.

In Belgium, Bruges is cutting advertising for day trips and reducing the number of cruise ships allowed to dock at Zeebrugge port.

Amsterdam's soaring visitor numbers reached 18 million in 2018, prompting the Netherlands tourism board to halt advertising campaigns, stating that its focus is now on "destination management" rather than "destination promotion."

Marco Gasparinetti, an environmental lawyer and spokesperson for Venice's largest activist group Gruppo 25 Aprile, told CNN Travel that American tourists sometimes ask him when Venice closes.

Gasparinetti believes that the proposed access fee skirts Venice's real problem with overcrowding and won't deter tourists. His group, whose primary campaign is to preserve the number of residents in the city so that it doesn't turn into a "kind of theme park," is calling for a quota instead.

For Venice to be enjoyed by tourists, the city also needs to exist as a place for everyday life, he says.

Fifty years ago, approximately 150,000 people lived in the city. Now, only some 53,000 residents are left.

Between an aging population and a highly educated young population looking for work opportunities outside of the tourism sector, Venice sees a net loss of around 1,000 inhabitants a year.

"We need to create conditions for people to stay," he says, adding that there are no jobs for young graduates, "unless you want to waitress or work selling tourist stuff at a kiosk."

Although the city attracts new residents each year, they tend to be extremely wealthy, Gasparinetti notes, saying that the city is losing its middle class.

Meanwhile, many Venetians who leave end up renting out their apartments on Airbnb, which some say encourages more tourists than the city is equipped to handle.

Artist Deirdre Kelly, who has lived in the city for 15 years, believes that instead of focusing on a tourist tax, the Venice authority should try to manage Airbnb and other rental schemes.

"It brings tears to my eyes to see these articles that show whereall the red dots are," she says, referring to the Airbnb's search function which shows prospective travelers available rental options.

"It actually looks like Venice is bleeding to death."

Tourism -- and tourism sector jobs -- are the staple of life for many inhabitants. Venice's Port Authority President Pino Musolino says that while the cruise ships might bring in plenty of foot traffic to the city, they also help to create up to 6,000 jobs for the locality.

"30 million plus tourists per year is a golden pot and a very easy one," Musolino tells CNN Travel.

"It's all gain and no losses," he says.

Still, Musolino believes that its time to start thinking about creating jobs outside of the tourism sector, agreeing that limiting the amount of travelers at certain times of the year would help.

"[It's] not because we want to close city or put up gates," Musolino says, but to challenge the idea that Venice is just an "open-air museum."

"I don't think anybody would be happy to live in a city that is just a beautifully wrapped box with nothing inside."

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venice becomes the front line in the battle against overtourism - cnn

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Venice becomes the front line in the battle against overtourism

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(CNN) - Strolling down a tiny street in Venice's San Marco district, a couple pauses in front of a hand-crafted leather goods stall, one of hundreds of "authentically Venetian" shops lining the cobblestone streets of the city's tourist thoroughfares. Holding hands, they stop to embrace in front of the famed Grand Canal.

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30 minute documentary about how Venice was built, how the buildings are under threat and what is being done.

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30 minute documentary about how Venice was built, how the buildings are under threat and what is being done.

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Pie & Lore @27 mins, learn about the injection project: the plan to raise the sand beds by injecting water underneath

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Venice's need to rescue its future | DW Documentary

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A 10 minute public broadcasting service documentary

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A 10 minute public broadcasting service documentary

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Covers MOSE project, cost of living in Venice, loss of shops for locals

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Climate change challenges sinking city of Venice

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Find out about a social business to help support locals in Venice

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Venezia Autentica | Discover and Support the Authentic Venice

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Venezia Autentica: Discover and Support the authentic Venice (Italy)

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Venezia Autentica, "Authentic Venice", is a social business helping the Venetians stay work & live in Venice. We make it fun and rewarding to enjoy Venice like an authentic Venetian while making a positive impact on the city. Feel like a local: eat, drink, shop, experience Venice the authentic way.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(CNN) - Strolling down a tiny street in Venice's San Marco district, a couple pauses in front of a hand-crafted leather goods stall, one of hundreds of "authentically Venetian" shops lining the cobblestone streets of the city's tourist thoroughfares. Holding hands, they stop to embrace in front of the famed Grand Canal.

"Watch out where you're going!" a hurried passerby barks at the couple, who are oblivious to the oncoming foot traffic. "This is Europe, walk on the right side!"

It's a scene frequently replayed across the city, and one that's now almost as famous as Venice's medieval piazzas, its architecture and artworks and its winding waterways echoing to the songs of gondoliers.

Venice received more than 36 million international tourists in 2017, a near 10% rise on the previous year. While travelers fuel the city's economy, they're also the primary contributors to Venice's biggest problem: overcrowding.

From April to October, an estimated 32,000 cruise ship passengers disembark here daily, according to the Port Authority. In August, an additional 465,100 day-trippers make their way to the city, adding to the chaos of an additional 2.2 million tourists who will stay overnight, according to recent National Tourism Agency figures.

Many Venetians believe that everyone should have a chance to experience the beauty of their city, but say that a constant swell of tourists is ruining the experience for everyone.

Short visits put a strain on the city's overstretched infrastructure, and cheap Airbnb rentals have driven up the cost of accommodation and living conditions for locals, some of whom have decided to leave altogether.

Tourists have been visiting Venice since the early 18th century and have always been a vital part of the cityscape. But how to keep that sustainable and intact for the future is a big question, says Luca Velo, a researcher at the University of Venice.

"The main issue today is the lack of general vision for the future of the city," he tells CNN Travel. "We don't actually know how much mass tourism will impact the future, for ourselves and for the extraordinary environment that we have here."

But for years, local authorities argue they've been taking those steps.

In November 2017, Italy's government announced a ban on cruise ships weighing over 100,000 tones from entering from Venice's Grand Canal, instead diverting them to Marghera, a neighboring industrial area.

Last spring, city authorities brought in turnstiles designed to restrict th e movement of visitors in some of the city's most crowded arteries over a long holiday weekend.

And in the high season, English-speaking police-assistants, known as "decorum angels," can be found patrolling some of the busiest areas in town, warning tourists who dare to dip their feet in the canals or who are caught eating or drinking in an undesignated area -- that they could be facing a fine of up to €500 (about $585).

Now, Venice is planning to take its most controversial step yet.

In September, a new measure requiring day-trippers to pay an entrance fee into the city of up to $11 (€10) will come into effect. Tourists overnighting in Venice will be exempt as a city tax is already included in the hotel rate. Residents, some 30,000 commuters, students and children under six will also not be required to pay.

Simone Venturini, Venice's deputy mayor and councilor for economic development, tells CNN Travel that the money will go towards costs such as waste and security management.

Day-trippers who benefit from city services without spending much inside the city itself will, he says, "at least leave a contribution that will allow the municipality to lessen costs that currently fall on the shoulders of the citizens."

"We believe those who comes here should stay a few days and experience [the city] slowly, lose themselves in the canals of Venice and appreciate all the islands and places that are perhaps less famous to San Marco at the Rialto bridge," Venturini says, adding that tourism "must be managed not [by] closing the gates and blocking the city, but by incentivizing quality tourism."

While the authorities believe the fee will help make the city more sustainable for tourists and locals alike, others say it's an undemocratic, exclusionary system that also draws parallels to an amusement park.

Across Europe, cities are struggling to tackle overtourism.

In Belgium, Bruges is cutting advertising for day trips and reducing the number of cruise ships allowed to dock at Zeebrugge port.

Amsterdam's soaring visitor numbers reached 18 million in 2018, prompting the Netherlands tourism board to halt advertising campaigns, stating that its focus is now on "destination management" rather than "destination promotion."

Marco Gasparinetti, an environmental lawyer and spokesperson for Venice's largest activist group Gruppo 25 Aprile, told CNN Travel that American tourists sometimes ask him when Venice closes.

Gasparinetti believes that the proposed access fee skirts Venice's real problem with overcrowding and won't deter tourists. His group, whose primary campaign is to preserve the number of residents in the city so that it doesn't turn into a "kind of theme park," is calling for a quota instead.

For Venice to be enjoyed by tourists, the city also needs to exist as a place for everyday life, he says.

Fifty years ago, approximately 150,000 people lived in the city. Now, only some 53,000 residents are left.

Between an aging population and a highly educated young population looking for work opportunities outside of the tourism sector, Venice sees a net loss of around 1,000 inhabitants a year.

"We need to create conditions for people to stay," he says, adding that there are no jobs for young graduates, "unless you want to waitress or work selling tourist stuff at a kiosk."

Although the city attracts new residents each year, they tend to be extremely wealthy, Gasparinetti notes, saying that the city is losing its middle class.

Meanwhile, many Venetians who leave end up renting out their apartments on Airbnb, which some say encourages more tourists than the city is equipped to handle.

Artist Deirdre Kelly, who has lived in the city for 15 years, believes that instead of focusing on a tourist tax, the Venice authority should try to manage Airbnb and other rental schemes.

"It brings tears to my eyes to see these articles that show whereall the red dots are," she says, referring to the Airbnb's search function which shows prospective travelers available rental options.

"It actually looks like Venice is bleeding to death."

Tourism -- and tourism sector jobs -- are the staple of life for many inhabitants. Venice's Port Authority President Pino Musolino says that while the cruise ships might bring in plenty of foot traffic to the city, they also help to create up to 6,000 jobs for the locality.

"30 million plus tourists per year is a golden pot and a very easy one," Musolino tells CNN Travel.

"It's all gain and no losses," he says.

Still, Musolino believes that its time to start thinking about creating jobs outside of the tourism sector, agreeing that limiting the amount of travelers at certain times of the year would help.

"[It's] not because we want to close city or put up gates," Musolino says, but to challenge the idea that Venice is just an "open-air museum."

"I don't think anybody would be happy to live in a city that is just a beautifully wrapped box with nothing inside."

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venice becomes the front line in the battle against overtourism - cnn

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Venice becomes the front line in the battle against overtourism

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(CNN) - Strolling down a tiny street in Venice's San Marco district, a couple pauses in front of a hand-crafted leather goods stall, one of hundreds of "authentically Venetian" shops lining the cobblestone streets of the city's tourist thoroughfares. Holding hands, they stop to embrace in front of the famed Grand Canal.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/articles/cruise-ships-venice/

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Fanpage.it has video clips of acqua alta this week 

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Fanpage.it has video clips of acqua alta this week 

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Libreria Acqua Alta di Venezia, è dramma: "Tutti i libri distrutti"

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https://www.ft.com/content/419dd116-078c-11ea-a958-5e9b7282cbd1

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Venice is in trouble. This week's flood was the latest in a litany of miseries that encompasses hazardous cruise ships, unstoppable tourist flows and a plummeting population. That the Italian city is facing a potentially lethal crisis is indisputable. Without a radical new strategy, Venice's plight will only intensify. The question is whether the required revolution will kick off next month when a referendum offers Venetians the chance to vote for administrative separation from the mainland.

Summarising Venice's problems is easy. Nothing about its centuries-old infrastructure was designed to withstand water levels whose rise has been exacerbated by climate change. The city's labyrinth of streets and waterways is equally unfitted to serve as a mass tourist destination.

Given these challenges, good governance is crucial. Yet over the decades, Venice's municipal leaders have been found wanting. In 2014, the then mayor, Giorgio Orsoni, resigned amid corruption allegations relating to the so-called Mose flood barrier scheme.

This week, as the waters rose, Venetians on social media raised a cry of anger and despair: "Dove Mose? " Where is Moses? Nearly 20 years after construction began, the barrier - which in theory would have saved Venice from last week's disaster - is nowhere near ready.

Most Venetians blame a cocktail of corrupt, inefficient politicians and business executives. Italy's central government is in no way exempt from culpability. Mose was spearheaded by Silvio Berlusconi's administration and CVN, the company responsible for construction, reports to the ministry of infrastructure and transport.

The removal of the consortium's management (in the same inquiry that brought down Mr Orsoni) created a gap for competent successors that was never filled. The result is that the chances that Mose will be operational by 2022, more than ten years after the original deadline of 2011, are very slim. Many Venetians decry the scheme on the grounds that a less expensive, more environmentally friendly solution could have been found.

Living in Venice for nine years, I grew accustomed to the swirl of rumour around local politicians whose active business affairs suggested conflicts of interest. Even where corruption has not occurred, it has been impossible to condone the strategy of selling off municipal properties - most notably the stunning Renaissance Fondaco dei Tedesci, formerly the central post office, now a megastore, sold to the Benetton Group in 2008 - to private companies. Equally shameful is the failure to provide affordable housing for residents while allowing Airbnbs and second homes to proliferate.

Now, however, the referendum on December 1 offers Venice an opportunity for change. Venetians will vote on whether the city should separate itself from the mainland boroughs, the most important of which is Mestre.

Would such isolation really benefit Venice? Many Venetians believe so. It's likely, however, that Mestre will vote for the status quo. The current mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, who is against the split, is from the mainland, as are the majority of his council. But if they were allowed to divorce, voters could elect an administration that better understands Venice's vulnerable ecosystem. The disadvantage is that, economically, Venice and Mestre are codependent.

It's unlikely that the separatists will prevail, and the referendum is in any case only consultative. It is also the case that thousands of Venetians who will vote to hive themselves off will do so as a last resort. Many acknowledge that separation is no guarantee of better governance, either locally or nationally.

But the fact that Venetians are even countenancing such a desperate move means that even if they fail, the leavers must be heeded. This unique city demands tailor-made strategies and resources. If its leaders do not adopt a more informed, selfless and imaginative approach in the near future, Venice's next catastrophic flood could be her last.
The writer is an arts critic and poet
Letter in response to this article:
Maybe the Dutch were right, Venice needs a dam / From Renato Massari, Milan, Italy

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Venice is in trouble. This week's flood was the latest in a litany of miseries that encompasses hazardous cruise ships, unstoppable tourist flows and a plummeting population. That the Italian city is facing a potentially lethal crisis is indisputable. Without a radical new strategy, Venice's plight will only intensify.

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Solving the floods in Venice is a complex problem

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Solving the floods in Venice is a complex problem

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Published on 14.11.19, this article explains some of the reasons why the problem is difficult

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An extreme high tide inundated 85 percent of Venice on Tuesday night, drowning some parts of the city in six feet of water. Floodwaters pushed boats ashore and swept through buildings, swiping groceries off shelves and knocking library books into murky pools. Schools closed, a city council meeting was canceled. Residents and tourists navigated streets in waist-high waters. One man in his 70s died from electrocution as he tried to turn on a pump in his home.

Exceptionally high tides similar to this one have taken place in the city roughly once every five years or so. But this year's disastrous flooding is the worst it's been since 1966. It's the result of a confluence of risk factors involving the Moon, weather, sinking, a changing climate, and a billion-dollar project thrown off by political scandal. How the city navigates these issues moving forward could decide its future. And experts familiar with these problems say the city could have spared itself from today's damage.

"Venice is on its knees," Mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted on Wednesday. "We need everyone's help to overcome these days that are putting us to the test."

Ahead of the floods, a full Moon beamed over heavy rain and strong southerly winds, which all worked together to draw the tidewater up unusually high this week. The interplay between the Moon and wind around this time of year churns up what locals call acqua alta, or high water. When the water climbs to more than 140 centimeters (four and a half feet) above the hydrographic station at Punta della Salute, it's considered an "exceptional" tide.

Climate change is adding to the overflow of water. As ice melts and raises sea levels, high tides put Venice at greater risk. "These are the effects of climate change," Brugnaro said in one of his tweets. "The costs will be high."

"I would argue that the number one danger is sea level rise," Rafael Bras, provost at Georgia Tech and a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences tells The Verge. But there's another complicating factor.

Venice has been called the floating city when, actually, it's sinking. The city is made up of about 100 islands within a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. Thanks to shifting tectonic plates below and water pumped out of the ground for industrial use in the middle of the century, Venice sank almost five inches between 1950 and 1970, and it continues to subside by about one-fifth of an inch each year.

frustration among scientists, policymakers, engineers

Venetians are acutely aware of these looming threats, and that's why there's frustration among scientists, policymakers, engineers, and advocates over why it wasn't better able to prevent this week's destruction.

Jane da Mosto, an environmental scientist and executive director of the NGO We Are Here Venice, says that the biggest contributing factors to the destruction this week aren't from Mother Nature but from human failures. "We need to improve the decision making. We need to improve the planning. We need to improve the science and technology behind big infrastructure," she says.

Venice has spent more than $6 billion on a flood-barrier system nicknamed MOSE (a reference to the biblical story of Moses' parting of the sea). That project encompasses a system of steel gates along three inlets in the lagoon that would be lifted during tides that reach higher than 3.6 feet above sea level. The project that broke ground in 2003 and initially had a 2011 deadline, would have provided protection from tides up to 10 feet tall. But it's over budget, behind schedule, and beleaguered with a corruption scandal. Former mayor Giorgio Orsoni resigned in 2014 and was arrested along with other officials accused of embezzling millions of dollars in funds meant for the flood barriers.

Venice could be underwater within 100 years

The flood barrier system has been controversial for other reasons. Environmentalists worry that it could harm the lagoon's ecosystems. And as sea levels keep rising, the scheme's utility comes with an expiration date. MOSE was designed to protect the city over the next 50 to 100 years, according to Bras, who served as the chair of an oversight committee for the project from 1995 to 2013. But that might not be enough. Recent studies have found that Venice could be underwater within 100 years if climate change continues unchecked.

Still, the project buys the city time, Bras says. "The point here is that the danger is imminent, and the longer you wait, the worse it gets," he tells The Verge. "The barriers will solve the problem and will have protected against the floods that we're seeing today."

"The problem is extremely complex, I really hope that this is a wake up call for the people who are in charge," says Paola Rizzoli, a professor of physical oceanography at MIT who, along with Bras, previously served as a consultant on the MOSE project. But having grown up in Venice and survived the historic 1966 flood when she was in high school, she says, "I just trust the resilience of the city to survive."

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Venice's historic flooding blamed on human failure and climate change

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An extreme high tide inundated 85 percent of Venice on Tuesday night, drowning some parts of the city in six feet of water. Floodwaters pushed boats ashore and swept through buildings, swiping groceries off shelves and knocking library books into murky pools. Schools closed, a city council meeting was canceled.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/news/cruise-ships-crack-down-venice-historic-centre-unesco-overtourism/

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Emma By Ivana Kottasová November 14 2019

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Emma By Ivana Kottasová November 14 2019

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https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/14/europe/venice-floods-problems-intl/index.html

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Pietro:post the November 13 2019 post by Beth   Venice Italy is being destroyed by tourism and flooding     

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Pietro:post the November 13 2019 post by Beth   Venice Italy is being destroyed by tourism and flooding     

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https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Venice-Tourism-Sinking

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an aging population and sinking foundations. then the floods came - cnn

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Venice was suffering overtourism, an aging population and sinking foundations. Then the floods came

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Venice's misfortunes never seem to stop. The popular tourist destination has been hit by the worst flooding in 50 years this week, resulting in damage worth hundreds of millions of euros.

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https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/venice-tourism-overcrowding-intl/index.html

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Business Insider article in Italian from September 2019

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A Venezia è emergenza "overtourism", ossia "troppo turismo". È quanto emerge dallo studio di Roland Berger dal titolo emblematico "Protecting your city from overtourism", vale a dire "Proteggere la tua città dal troppo turismo", che ha passato in rassegna 52 località europee misurandone appunto l'afflusso di visitatori stranieri per comprendere se e quanto sia sostenibile.

Per stilare la lista delle città europee afflitte dalla piaga del troppo turismo, Roland Berger ha incrociato due fattori: il numero di pernottamenti rispetto agli abitanti e il valore economico generato dal turismo. E Venezia, insieme con Amsterdam, Barcellona, Copenaghen, Dublino, Francoforte, Lisbona e Reykjavík, è finita tra le mete definite "sotto pressione", caratterizzate cioè da una densità di turismo elevata e in crescita ma da una lenta creazione di valore.

A sorpresa, Roma rientra invece tra le cosiddette "stelle che brillano", quella città cioè che presentano livelli di turismo salutari e sostenibili. Insieme con la Capitale, nella stessa condizione virtuosa, figurano anche altre città, come Vienna, Berlino e Londra. Ci sono poi mete, tra cui l'italiana Verona ma anche Budapest, Lione e Siviglia solo per citare alcuni esempi, che mostrano un potenziale inespresso dal punto di vista turistico ( "unused potential" secondo la terminologia dello studio).

L'inserimento di Venezia nella categoria "sotto pressione", riconoscono nella ricerca gli stessi esperti di Roland Berger, "è forse inaspettato se si considera che la città mostra la più elevata creazione di valore e una densità di turismo molto elevata. Ma, benché abbia offerte di lusso, Venezia è presa d'assalto ogni anno dal turismo di massa, per la maggior parte in arrivo dal flusso incontrollato dei passeggeri da crociera e dai pullman carichi di viaggiatori giornalieri".
Leggi anche: Dopo la tassa di sbarco a Venezia anche le altre città d'arte chiedono un ticket d'ingresso
Secondo gli esperti di Roland Berger, "l'incontrollabile flusso di viaggiatori che ogni giorno sbarcano in Laguna, la progressiva sparizione degli esercizi commerciali locali e la graduale diminuzione della popolazione nativa sono i principali fattori che stanno mettendo in ginocchio il capoluogo veneto. Misure immediate e di tipo reattivo sono state attivate con l'obiettivo di ridurre il numero di turisti in entrata, a partire dai ticket per l'ingresso giornaliero e i tornelli in città". Questi provvedimenti basteranno a scongiurare la piaga dell' overtourism?

"La situazione di Venezia - spiega Francesco Calvi Parisetti, partner di Roland Berger - è paradossale: gli alberghi e le altre strutture ricettive, pur favorite da Airbnb, sono sottoutilizzati. A questo si somma la stagionalità che vede luglio con oltre il doppio dei turisti rispetto a dicembre o a gennaio. Non solo. Le punte nel fine settimana che si registrano lungo tutto l'anno potrebbero essere ammorbidite con offerte ad hoc vista anche l'elevata componente di turisti extra-Ue". A riguardo l'esperto di Roland Berger riferisce i dati dell'annuario del turismo della città di Venezia, secondo cui Stati Uniti, Cina e Corea superano il 20% del totale presenze.

"È insensata - conclude Calvi Parisetti - anche la concentrazione dei flussi sulla direttrice Rialto-San Marco. Vanno creati percorsi alternativi. Il Carnevale è naturalmente un periodo di particolare affollamento, dove la congestione aumenta a dismisura e i limiti agli ingressi a piazza San Marco finora imposti non rappresentano evidentemente una soluzione adeguata".

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A Venezia è emergenza "overtourism" , ossia "troppo turismo". È quanto emerge dallo studio di Roland Berger dal titolo emblematico "Protecting your city from overtourism", vale a dire "Proteggere la tua città dal troppo turismo", che ha passato in rassegna 52 località europee misurandone appunto l'afflusso di visitatori stranieri per comprendere se e quanto sia sostenibile.

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This very interesting news report includes information about action Venetians are taking to help the locals: Fairbnb and Venezia Autentica. Good work Riccardo for finding this!

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Friday 15 March was a rare day in Venice: on the concourse in front of the Santa Lucia train station, Venetians outnumbered tourists.

Young Venetians had skipped school to join the global youth climate strike, holding placards with statements such as "If climate was a bank, you'd save it." The movement is especially relevant in Venice, since a 50cm rise in sea levels could see the city vanish beneath the waves.

Critical as the climate crisis is, the city faces a more immediate risk: the rising tide of tourists, presently estimated at 25 million a year and projected to reach 38 million by 2025.

Nowadays you can go to a place and virtually never meet a local

Europe, already the world's largest tourism market, received 713 million international visitors in 2018, an 8% increase on the previous year, according to the UN World Tourism Organization. But, in European cities, the increase is far greater: since 2008, overnight stays have jumped 57%. While tourism provides significant economic benefit - contributing €2bn annually in gross revenue to Venice alone - overtourism is causing cities like Barcelona, Amsterdam, Dubrovnik and others to make international headlines on issues ranging from housing affordability, environmental degradation and the destruction of local life.

In 2016 in Dubrovnik, residents were outraged when the mayor asked them to stay home to avoid the dangerous levels of crowds disembarking from multiple cruise ships. The new mayor, Mato Frankovic, has since capped the number of cruise ships that can dock in the city at two per day, cut souvenir stalls by 80% and cut restaurant seating in public spaces by 30%. But similar issues of overcrowding in Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastián, Prague and Salzburg have brought locals out into the streets in increasingly impassioned protests.

One of the most dramatic was Venice's 2016 No Grandi Navi ("No Big Ships") protest, when locals took to the Giudecca Canal in small fishing boats to block the passage of six colossal cruise ships. And, although plans have been announced this year to reroute the largest ships to a new dock in Marghera (still to be built), campaigners still argue for a dock outside the lagoon at the Lido, where heavy cargo ships historically unloaded.

As a series of crises puts Europe under strain, some cities are fighting back with innovative solutions. From hyper-specialist shops beating the online threat in Berlin to the Bulgarian city reversing the country's brain drain, from the Italian city finding new ways to tackle addiction to gambling to the Swedish town that has found innovative ways to combat extremism, we look at what European cities are doing to live better in our increasingly urban world.

Thank you for your feedback.

This is just one of the ways the Venetian Republic safeguarded the equilibrium of the lagoon and the complex system of commerce around it. In fact, the act of sustaining the lagoon for over a millennium is a singular human achievement, because a lagoon by definition is a temporary natural phenomenon. Venice's lagoon would have silted in 500 years ago if it hadn't been for careful environmental protection, sensitive technical intervention and strict commercial regulation - a historic blueprint that provides useful lessons for tourism.

A new generation of concerned citizens and entrepreneurs is taking up that challenge, combining grassroots activism with socially sensitive, sustainable initiatives to save their island home. Consider waste. What comes into Venice must be removed again via a complex collection and recycling system. Every day an army of sanitation workers knocks on every door in the city, collecting waste to be ferried away on barges. The same rules and fines, however, do not apply to tourists - despite the fact that during high season the bins around Piazza San Marco have to be emptied every half an hour.

We don't pretend to be [Leonardo] DiCaprio, but through these small actions we hope to do something positive

Troubled by the plastic waste generated by their two boutique hotels - the Novecento and Hotel Flora - the Romanelli family have taken action, eliminating plastic bottles from their properties, and encouraging guests to use steel flasks at Venice's historic water fountains, for which they supply a map. "We don't pretend to be [Leonardo] DiCaprio, but through these small actions we hope to do something positive," says the owner, Gioele Romanelli.

With just 50 rooms and 40 members of staff, they calculate they save 36,000 plastic bottles a year. Multiply that by the estimated 40,000 guest beds in Venice - to say nothing of restaurants or the waste unloaded from cruise ships - and you could save hundreds of millions of plastic bottles a year. "Our children learn about these issues at school and all of them carry their own water flasks, so why not us?" concludes Romanelli's wife, Heiby.

Addressing the issue of waste is only the most tangible effort to create a more sustainable tourism in Venice.This June will see the launch of Fairbnb, a not-for-profit home-sharing site that only permits resident hosts; mandates one home per host; and contributes half of the 15% booking fee to social projects.

Their launch is timely. Since 2015, Airbnb tourist rentals in Venice have tripled from 2,441 to 8,320, according to Airdna. Of those, 80% are entire home rentals, many are owned by agencies or foreign investors and a 2018 report by Centro Studi di Federalberghi Nazionale found the most prolific host in the city had 135 listings.

We're not anti-Airbnb - we just want to show it's possible to create a tourism model that works for locals as well as travellers

Other European cities are responding to similar problems. Barcelona is prosecuting unlicensed apartments and has secured access to Airbnb's host data in order to pursue offenders. In Madrid, home sharing is now only permitted in houses with their own entrances. Palma, meanwhile, has banned short-term tourist rentals completely in flats that are part of multi-family residential housing, although it is still possible to rent detached homes and villas, provided they are not in a protected area.

"Without significant regulation of the rental market [in Italy], we saw the only way to change things was to provide a market alternative," says Emanuele dal Carlo, a Venetian who is one of five co-founders of Fairbnb, which crowdfunded for its startup cash. "We're not anti-Airbnb - we just want to show that it's possible to create a tourism model that works for local communities as well as travellers."

On booking, Fairbnb renters decide which project to support and are invited to visit or participate: in Venice this could mean joining volunteers cleaning graffiti or helping turn a centuries-old squero (boat yard) into an educational centre.

"We want to bring back the connection between tourists and locals that has been lost," dal Carlo says. "Nowadays you can go to a place and virtually never meet a local. But this way you can join them in their real pursuits or even just share a drink together."

This loss of connection between locals and tourists is something that Valeria Duflot and Sebastian Fagarazzi are also concerned with. Their website Venezia Autentica directs tourists to Venice businesses that support a sustainable local economy - everything from printmakers to photographers, mosaicists to rowers. This is because too few of the city's 25 million tourists frequent shops and restaurants owned by Venetians, they say. "Quality local businesses definitely need more customers, visitors included," Duflot says.

Across Europe, other grassroots groups are also fighting to preserve local cultures. In 2017, the social movement Morar em Lisboa, in conjunction with 30 local associations, wrote an open letter denouncing Lisbon's excessive dependency on tourism and real estate speculation. And last May, 14 cities and islands - 10 of them Spanish, alongside Venice, Lisbon and Malta - joined forces to form the Network of Southern European Cities against Touristification, arguing that mass tourism causes high rents, pollution, the loss of local shops and the proliferation of low-wage jobs.

This is what the European Parliament was referring to when, in 2015, it declared that "European tourism must make a transition from a model of quantitative growth to a qualitative model leading to steady and sustainable development."

To kick-start new thinking on the matter, they awarded the inaugural 2019 European Capital of Smart Tourism to Helsinki for the city's locally-oriented tourism strategy, which is based on sustainability and the assumption that what makes a city attractive to residents will appeal to travellers, too.

It is this focus on the liveability of a city that Venetian data scientist Fabio Carrera believes is the key to Venice's future. Because if a city cannot retain its own populace, no amount of tourist tax will be able to avert its inevitable decline and death.

As such, Carrera has dedicated 30 years of his academic life working on the Venice Project Centre, dividing his time between Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the prestigious Santa Fe Institute and Venice. During that time, he has supervised over 250 projects examining the city's challenges: mapping every bridge, bell tower, well and water bus.

The centre also tracks tourism flows, and has concluded that Venice's maximum carrying capacity is 55,000 tourists per day, or 20 million per year if European safety standards are to be maintained. It's not far from the current number of 25 million, he points out - it just needs to be managed better.

A new wave of digital tools could offer some solutions. At the centre's startup incubator SerenDPT, students are working on projects including smart transport apps, hybrid mortgage schemes that use tourism income to assist with repayments, and a Smart Control Room for the city council that they hope they can export to other cities. He believes these new business ideas, among others, would create the kind of high quality jobs that could refloat the local economy.

No other city faces a bigger tourism challenge, says Carrera - but given Venice's uniquely contained and complex character, nowhere is better equipped to meet the challenge of sustainable tourism. "Younger generations have been out in the world," he says. "They see other possibilities and want to bring that back to Venice."
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Sinking city: how Venice is managing Europe's worst tourism crisis

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Venice's booming tourism industry is threatening the city's very survival. But grassroots initiatives are making a difference - and may even help other cities

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The spectacular centrepiece of Venice, St Mark's Square, now floods more than 60 times a year, up from four times a year in 1900. Recent storms reportedly helped cover over 70% of the city in water, which rose by up to 156cm above its normal level.

Upcoming research conducted with our colleagues at the National Research Centre of Venice (CNR) shows that, without intervention, within 50 years this kind of flooding could occur with nearly every high tide. In fact, some experts have argued that Venice will be gone by the year 2100.

The increase in flooding in Venice is due to the combined effects of land subsidence causing the city to sink, and climate change causing the global sea level to rise. But the city's chosen solution to the problem, an unfinished scheme of 78 storm gates known as MOSE, is likely to cause damage to the ecological health of the surrounding lagoon and, in the long run, could have no effect on Venice's preservation.

Wikimedia Commons

Venetians have been managing Venice lagoon with engineering since the 12th century. The city is built on 118 small islands drained by a network of canals and located within a tidal lagoon sat between the Italian coast and several barrier islands known as the Murazzi. Interventions have included diverting six major rivers away from the lagoon to stop its waterways filling with silt, rebuilding and extending the Murazzi and reducing the inlets between them from the original nine to three.

Venetians have also combated flooding by periodically raising pavements and walkways and building embankments, but this is no longer possible without damaging the city's architecture. So in 2003, the MOSE project was launched as a way of protecting Venice from the worsening floods. But the Venetian scientific community is divided over the impact of the project on the lagoon given how much worse the flooding could become.

Records held in the city show the Venice sea level has consistently risen by a total of 26cm since 1870. Around 12cm of that comes from the fact that Venice's islands are subsiding because of the amount of water removed from the aquifer beneath Venice lagoon. Further measurements show that sea level is still rising 2.4mm a year.

As a result, with a sea level rise of 50cm, the MOSE storm gates will need to close almost daily in order to protect the city from flooding. The problem with this comes from the fact that some of the Venice's untreated sewage flows directly into the lagoon via the canals and presently is flushed through the inlets into the sea within a week. Shutting the inlets every day could cause increased microbiological pollution and eutrophication in the lagoon. This is where the water becomes so full of nutrients that it spawns excessive growth of plants and algae at the expense of other wildlife.

Lagoon at risk

This would follow other damage to the lagoon's ecosystem caused by the loss of salt marshes and tidal flats (and the reclamation of tidal flats in other areas for fish farming). Meanwhile, seabed erosion from dredging and illegal clam harvesting has increased the central part of the lagoon's depth by 50cm since 1970. There are major concerns among the scientific community of Venice that further enclosing and restricting the lagoon will further compromise its ecological health.

The other problem with MOSE is that it doesn't address the issue of the rising sea level, which is already damaging the city's buildings with salt and damp, despite widespread renovations of foundations and canals. The conservator of St Mark's Cathedral has shown that sea water has risen several metres through the church's foundations walls.

Andrea Merola/EPA

Several alternatives to the MOSE project have been proposed, including pumping water back into the ground to raise the city up, but none have received widespread acceptance by the scientific community. There is agreement that the salt marshes and mudflats that once surrounded Venice should be returned to their former extent in order to preserve the ecological health of the lagoon.

But this will certainly not solve the problem of rising sea levels. If the sea level rises above a sustainable water level there will be no other choice than to permanently cut off the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Clearly, this can only be done if the problems of pollution, sewage and port activities have been resolved. In this case we will have a fresh water lagoon, different from the one we know, but preserving the city of Venice within it.

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Venice flooding is getting worse - and the city's grand plan won't save it

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The spectacular centrepiece of Venice, St Mark's Square, now floods more than 60 times a year, up from four times a year in 1900. Recent storms reportedly helped cover over 70% of the city in water, which rose by up to 156cm above its normal level.

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Venice's Santa Lucia railway station is packed as visitors scuttle across the concourse towards the water-bus stops. Taking a selfie against the backdrop of the Grand Canal, Ciro Esposito and his girlfriend have just arrived and are unimpressed with what may greet them in future if the Venetian authorities get their way: a minimum city entry fee of €2.50 throughout the year, rising to between €5 and €10 during peak periods.

It is the price of a cappuccino, but for them "it's going too far". "They are using people like a bank machine," says Esposito. "We are in Europe and can travel freely across borders, yet we have to pay to enter one of our own cities."

In earlier times it was the wheeled suitcases that tourists rattled over the cobbles that drew the ire of Venetians - so much so that the authorities pledged to fine anyone caught using one up to €500. That never happened, but now another - more plausible - penalty is being concocted. To manage the impact of the 30 million people who visit the lagoon city every year, the daytrippers - those who come, take pictures, and leave - are to be forced to pay, although it is unclear when the tax will be introduced or how it could be enforced.

Venice may have a centuries-long history of cultivating tourism, devising crowd-drawing events such as the annual carnival, the Biennale international art exhibition and a star-studded film festival, but the advent of mass tourism has left it struggling with how to deal with the near-constant hordes who trudge around its precious sites, through its 11th century basilica, over its famous Rialto bridge, and along its maze of winding calle.The influx isa blessing for the local council's coffers but a scourge on the city's fragile monuments and environment.

Luigi Brugnaro, the Venice mayor who regularly lashes out at uncouth tourists, is increasingly under pressure to act. Not only does he face local elections next year but, in July, Unesco will decide whether or not to put the fragile city - battered by increasingly frequent flooding and swamped in summer by tourists - alongside America's Everglades National Park and the rainforests of Madagascar on its list of the world's endangered heritage sites.

For many Italians, though, the charge is not the answer. Even those who welcome it are sceptical that it will make a real difference. The entrance fee will not apply to those who have booked hotel rooms, and visitors already pay a tourist tax of up to €6 per night if they stay in the city.

"If people want to come, then they will still pay to come," says Clelia Tanzarelli, a regular visitor from Rome. "Venice is a very delicate city and there needs to be some plan, but if this is just an extra tax then it won't solve the problem. A better solution would be to limit visitor numbers."

As with the wheeled suitcases, the dilemma is how on earth to turn the plan into a workable and enforceable policy. There have been suggestions that the charge could be added to the cost of arriving in the city either by train, bus or cruise ship, with the respective transport companies passing the proceeds on to Venice authorities.

While it is not possible to drive in Venice, people can arrive in the mainland area of the lagoon and park their vehicle for between €12 and €29 a day. Charging cruise-ship passengers is fairly straightforward - they could pay on the boat or as they disembark - but applying it to other modes of transport and distinguishing between Venice residents and visitors will be more challenging.

"Beyond the announcement, it doesn't seem to have been well thought out," said Dominic Standish, a British academic and author of the book Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and Reality.

"But the paradox of this measure is that the authorities bemoan tourism and say Venice is becoming like Disneyland, but if they're able to implement it, then it will make the city even more like Disneyland."

The notion of the fee appealing to residents may also backfire. Venetians have held several protests in recent years against a tourism industry which they argue has eroded their quality of life, damaged the environment and driven residents away. On some days the current population of 55,000 (down from about 175,000 in the post-second-world-war years) is dwarfed by the number of tourists.

Brugnaro has said that some of the extra cash from the fee will help fund the cleaning up of rubbish that daytrippers leave in their wake and improve the lives of locals, but many of those same locals are enraged by the idea that the charge would also have to be paid by departed Venetians visiting home and family. Understandably, that is not something they can celebrate.

"It's like adding insult to injury," said Marco Gasparinetti, who leads the Gruppo 25 Aprile activist group. "After forcing thousands of people to leave the city, you now force them to pay to visit their families? The tax would make sense if it was a way to offset the environmental impact of the cruise ships, as other than for cruise passengers, it's very difficult to apply."

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Attempts to divert massive cruise ships away from St Mark's Square will take years to complete. Photograph: Andrea Merola/EPA

In a move to allay environmental concerns, Brugnaro tried to indicate to Unesco in late 2017 that he was getting tough on the cruise ships that, weighing more than 96,000 tonnes, disembark thousands of passengers in the heart of the city. They would no longer be able to sail past St Mark's Square, he announced, and would instead take a less glamorous route via the industrial area of Marghera.

Environmentalists have claimed that waves caused by the cruise ships have eroded the underwater supports of historic buildings and polluted the waters. But the plan is yet to be approved by the national government. If and when that approval comes, work on the new route, which requires the dredging of canals and construction of a new port, would take an estimated four years. And while diverting the ships would better preserve the historic centre, the move will do little to address concerns about pollution.

It goes without saying, however, that Venice's troubles are not limited to tourism. The city is also endangered by recurring acque alte, or high waters. On 29 October last year, three-quarters of the city was hit by the worst flooding in a decade. Rain poured for almost 24 hours, with strong winds raising the water to 156cm above the normal sea level - a record reached only five times in the history of the city. As tourists persevered with their holidays - wading through knee-deep water in wellies and venturing to deluged shops and restaurants - locals counted the cost of the damage.

And the reckoning continues. A local newspaper has referred to the autumn flood as a day that Venetians will never forget.

For the second time since 2000, water filled St Mark's Basilica, causing damage to the marble floors, bronze metal doors and mosaic floors of the 1,000-year-old church. A few days after, the cathedral's administrators made the striking claim that the damage had caused the structure to age "20 years in one day". Initial repairs are costing about €2.2m but Marco Piana, one of the administrators, said the major concern was the long-term impact of the damage.

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Tourists throng the Rialto bridge in summer. Photograph: Marco Brivio/Getty Images

Administrators said the damage would have been avoided if the multibillion-pound Mose project designed to prevent flooding in the Venice lagoon had been up and running. Work on the flood barrier began in 2003 but has been dogged by delays and myriad issues, including a corruption scandal that emerged in 2014 and saw former mayor Giorgio Orsoni accused of accepting bribes in return for awarding contracts.

The latest estimated completion date is 2022, and the administrators have urged the national government to finish it as soon as possible.

"Around 96% is done, so there is just a small bit left to do, but they keep pushing the date back ... all of this depends on the funding coming from the government," said Piana.

The floor of the nearby Caffè Florian, one of Italy's oldest and most famous coffee houses, was also damaged by the floods, as were several shops.

Most locals grin and bear the high water when it occurs. "It does bother us when it happens but we're used to it, and the tourists have fun with it," said Michele Levorato, who runs a stall next to the Rialto bridge. He added that most locals also learned to live alongside the tourists, although he would like to see a "better quality" of visitor. "Many don't respect the city," he said.

In advance of the Unesco deadline, authorities have tried other initiatives to better manage tourism, such as installing turnstiles at the two entry points to the lagoon during peak periods in an attempt to control the crowds heading towards St Mark's Square and the Rialto. They are also trying to encourage people to visit other, lesser-known areas of the Venetian lagoon or one of its other islands, such as Murano and Burano.

But the uniqueness of Venice will forever hold an allure, making it unlikely that the measures will have much impact.

"If they want to improve the city they need to invest in better infrastructure in order to move people around better," said Standish. "An underground train system is something that has been debated for decades but the current administration is unwilling to consider it. This is partly the issue - they don't seem willing to make things better. They just have this anti-tourism bias."
Topics

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The death of Venice? City's battles with tourism and flooding reach crisis level

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Venice's Santa Lucia railway station is packed as visitors scuttle across the concourse towards the water-bus stops. Taking a selfie against the backdrop of the Grand Canal, Ciro Esposito and his girlfriend have just arrived and are unimpressed with what may greet them in future if the Venetian authorities get their way: a minimum city entry fee of €2.50 throughout the year, rising to between €5 and €10 during peak periods.

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Venice, Italy, Is Being Destroyed by Tourism and Flooding

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Venice has history, architecture and canals. Millions of tourists visit every year. They bring money and employment, but there is a downside too.

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Venice tries to change the laws on cruise ships

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Venice tries to change the laws on cruise ships

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This article was published in early August 2019 in The Local

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The Italian city has appealed to other top European cruise ship destinations, from Amsterdam to Barcelona, Dubrovnik and Marseille, to unite in tackling the dangers and environmental impact of hulking liners, port authorities said on Thursday.

The rallying cry for new rules to force companies to adapt their ships to the historical port cities that host them follows a collision involving a cruise ship in Venice that left tourists running for their lives.

VIDEO: Venice cruise ship nearly crashes during storm

Venice, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is slowly sinking, and cruise ships are being blamed for eroding the floating city's foundations.

"I have written to all European cities that share our experience with cruise tourism, and that find themselves having to balance economic development with environmental sustainability," Pino Musolino, chairman of the northern Adriatic Sea port authority, said in statement.

"The growing size of vessels, their environmental impacts on the areas surrounding the ports and the 'burden' that the increasing number of tourists... are creating a situation of conflict," he said in a letter to eight fellow port authorities.

A cruise ship dwarfs the historic centre of Venice. Photo: AFP

He called on them to "join forces" to oblige companies to "launch ships compatible with our structures and the environment".

In June, the giant 13-deck MSC Opera rammed into a dockside in Venice and knocked into a small tourist boat, injuring four people and sending others on the pier running for safety.

A month later, the 12-deck Costa Deliziosa, nearly 300 metres (1,000 feet) long, very narrowly missed a yacht while being towed out of Venice in stormy conditions.

The accident and near-miss reignited a long-running row over the damage caused to the city and its fragile ecosystem by cruise ships that sail exceptionally close to the shore.

Critics say the waves the ships create are eroding the foundations of the lagoon city, which regularly floods, leaving sites such as Saint Mark's Square underwater.

The "Serenissima", as the city is known, is not alone in suffering from mass cruise tourism.

In 2017, hugely popular Dubrovnik - another UNESCO World Heritage site - became synonymous with the cruise "overtourism" scourge, showing up on lists of destinations to avoid.

Marseille has wrestled with increased smog in recent years as it seeks to attract more lucrative cruise tourism.

And Bruges has said it plans to limit the number of cruise ships docking at the nearby port of Zeebrugge in a bid to curb the masses of day-trippers that descend on the so-called "Venice of the North".

The northern Adriatic Sea port authority in Venice said it had already received a positive response to its appeal from Barcelona, Palma and Marseille, and expected others to follow.

About 30 million people worldwide are expected to go on a cruise this year, up nearly 70 percent from a decade ago, according to the Cruise Lines International Association.

The rising number of monster cruise liners, often hundreds of metres long and several stories high, has increased concerns about environmental damage - including acid rain and damage to aquatic species -- as well as health risks.

READ ALSO:

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Venice leads European cities in call for new cruise ship rules

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The Italian city has appealed to other top European cruise ship destinations, from Amsterdam to Barcelona, Dubrovnik and Marseille, to unite in tackling the dangers and environmental impact of hulking liners, port authorities said on Thursday.

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an aging population and sinking foundations. then the floods came - cnn

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Venice was suffering overtourism, an aging population and sinking foundations. Then the floods came

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Venice's misfortunes never seem to stop. The popular tourist destination has been hit by the worst flooding in 50 years this week, resulting in damage worth hundreds of millions of euros.

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PTA takes action to help replace books at Acqua Alta bookstore

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PTA takes action to help replace books at Acqua Alta bookstore

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Sandy: News of Venice overflowing with waves and tourists

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Sandy: News of Venice overflowing with waves and tourists

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https://thepointsguy.co.uk/news/shocking-photos-venice-flood/

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Emma The Washington post 15 November 2019

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Emma The Washington post 15 November 2019

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https://www.sciencealert.com/venice-is-flooding-and-it-s-a-disturbing-glimpse-into-the-future-for-coastal-cities

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The American newspaper, The Washington Post, has a section called Kids’ Post with news stories written in simple language so that children can understand.

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November 18 at 1:18 PM
Venice was hit Sunday by a record third exceptionally high tide in the same week while other parts of Italy struggled with weather woes, including rain-swollen rivers, high winds and an out-of-season avalanche.

Stores and museums in Venice were mostly closed in the hardest-hit area around St. Mark's Square, but tourists put on high rubber boots to witness and photograph the spectacle.

Most were disappointed when officials closed the historic square as winds rippled across the rising waters. The doors of the famed St. Mark's Basilica were shut to the public, and authorities put sandbags in canal-side windows to prevent salty water from entering the 12th-centry crypt as it did last week.

Venice's Tide Office said the peak tide of nearly five feet hit just after 1 p.m. By early evening, the level was less than three feet.

Still it marked the third time since Tuesday night's six-foot flood - the worst in 53 years - that water levels in Venice had nearly reached five feet. Since records began in 1872, that level had never been reached even twice in one year, let alone three times in one week.

While Venetians had a bit of relief, days of heavy rainfall and snowfall elsewhere in Italy swelled rivers to worrisome levels, triggered an avalanche in the Alps and saw dramatic rescues of people unable to flee rising waters.

In Venice, many store owners in the area around St. Mark's emptied their shops, while others put their wares as high as possible and counted on automatic pumping systems to keep the water away.

Venice's mayor has put the flooding damage at hundreds of millions of dollars, and Italian officials have declared a state of emergency for the area. They say Venice is both sinking into the mud and facing rising sea levels because of climate change.
Read more from KidsPost: More of the world's population will face flooding tied to climate change Scientists use narwhals to understand sea-level rise With a surge in tornado activity, scientists want to know why

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Exceptionally high tides flood Venice for third time in one week

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November 18 at 1:18 PM Venice was hit Sunday by a record third exceptionally high tide in the same week while other parts of Italy struggled with weather woes, including rain-swollen rivers, high winds and an out-of-season avalanche. Stores and museums in Venice were mostly closed in the hardest-hit area around St.

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An overview of some of the issues facing Venice because of tourism

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An overview of some of the issues facing Venice because of tourism

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This article was published in August 2019 in the Business Insider and it quotes facts and figures from a lot of sources.

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Venice, one of the most popular destinations in Italy and a major port city, is going to start minimizing the number of cruise ships that are allowed to enter its historic city center, the Financial Times reported.

The Italian city, which goes by many nicknames including "The Floating City," "The City of Bridges," and "The City of Canals," sees between 26 million and 30 million people visiting per year.

But despite its beauty, the city suffers from massive overcrowding, devastating floods, and pollution and other environmental damage from the massive cruise ships that pass through every day.

While many people may still consider a trip to Venice worthwhile, these disappointing photos show the reality of the less glamorous aspects of the city.

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Venice is cutting back on cruise ships. Disappointing photos show what the Italian port city looks like in real life, from extreme overcrowding and devastating floods to cruise ship accidents

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Venice, one of the most popular destinations in Italy and a major port city, is going to start minimizing the number of cruise ships that are allowed to enter its historic city center, the Financial Times reported.

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Will the Government ban cruise ships from the Venetian Lagoon?

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Will the Government ban cruise ships from the Venetian Lagoon?

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This article was published in August 2019 in The Local, an English language newspaper about what’s happening in Italy.

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On Wednesday, Italian transport minister Danilo Toninelli told a parliamentary hearing that giant cruise ships could be diverted away from Venice's centre, where many currently dock.

The minister's suggestion involved rerouting one-third of all cruise ships from the city's central Marittima terminal to other nearby ports.

He said diversions could potentially begin as early as September this year.

The minister's statement on the issue this week sparked panicky headlines in international media, with many news reports implying that cruise holiday plans will be disrupted by an impending total ban on cruise ships docking in the city.

But such reports are completely baseless, as for now the idea of diverting some of the ships is nothing more than that: an idea.

"Nothing will change," says Hans Schrama, blogger at Avoid-Crowds.com. "Cruise ships have not (yet) been diverted."

"Despite massive media attention, Toninelli didn't actually ban a single ship. He voiced nothing more than plans during a transport committee meeting."

Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

"There is no law that bans ships. There is no 'executive order' that bans ships. So far, Toninelli has done nothing more than make a statement," Schrama adds.

In fact, this government meeting was just the first in a long series of planned discussions on the issue.

Italian authorities have been under renewed pressure to remove the cruise liners from Venice after a terrifying incident earlier this year, when a 13-deck cruise ship crashed into a wharf in the city, sending tourists running for their lives

Weeks later, a 12-storey liner narrowly avoided hitting a yacht during a storm.

These incidents revived long-running protests against large cruise ships docking in central Venice.

The rising number of monster cruise liners raises concerns about environmental damage - including acid rain and damage to aquatic species - as well as air pollution putting the health of city residents at risk

Cruise ships are also widely seen as the biggest contributor to the city's issues with mass tourism, as they often disgorge thousands of day trippers at a time - who are accused of contributing little to the local economy.

Problems with overcrowding have led the city to experiment with ideas ranging from people-counting machines to the introduction of entry fees and advance booking.

READ ALSO: Italy's 'art cities' are attracting more visitors than ever. But can they cope?

Even if the minister's idea is adopted offically in future, experts say it wouldn't address the city's pressing problems with overtourism and damage to its fragile ecosystem - since the cruise liners would still be docking in Venice.

"If cruise ships are actually banned from arriving at the terminal, they will be forced elsewhere but will remain in the area. Cruise passengers will continue to find their way to Venice's centre," says Schrama.

"All mentioned alternative docking locations are within the metropolitan region of Venice."

One frequently-mentioned alternative port, Fusina, is "so closely located to the city centre that passengers will arrive in Venice within no time," Schrama explains.

"Meanwhile, other options mentioned in the news, such as Lido, Chioggia or Lombardia, are all within or at the outskirts of the Venetian lagoon."

And this won't be happening within a month's time.

Schrama says that these "alternative" ports are currently unable to accept cruise ships, and that it would take "large investments" to make that possible.

"Any tourist that has ever visited Lido or Chioggia knows that these are not viable alternatives and far from ready to receive even a medium sized ship," he says.

Not only are there some serious practical issues with what the minister is suggesting, but the deep-rooted problems faced by Venice won't be solved by simply banning cruise ships.

Campaigners in Venice compared the minister's idea to moving deckchairs on the Titanic - or "changing the position of the buffet when we're running out of food."

The government announcement about MOVING cruiseships is like changing the position of the cream teas buffet when we're running out of food! The problem has not been resolved YET.
1. There is a#climateemergency and... https://t.co/uTV1haDmjZ
- WearehereVenice (@WearehereVenice) August 8, 2019

"I'm still as worried as I ever was," says Jane Da Mosto, founder and executive director of local conservation group We Are Here Venice.

"There's a climate emergency. And yet, the Italian government and the cruise industry are talking only about moving these enormous, very environmentally challenging floating cities from one part of Venice to another."

Da Mosto argues that politicians should really be focusing on "creating stringent environmental performance standards for the cruise industry" and building "economically viable alternatives to mass tourism."

There have been various announcements of bans on cruise ships in Venice by politicians over the years.

Italy's previous government's plan to move liners weighing over 55,000 tons out of central Venice was officially approved in 2017, with measures set to come into force by 2021. But Toninelli dismissed this solution after his Five Star Movement party came to power last year.

The government before that also announced a similar plan to rid the city of cruise ships back in 2013.

As mega cruise liners continue to dock by St Mark's Square, it looks like the latest government announcement on the issue will make no difference at all.

READ ALSO:

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No, Venice hasn't just banned cruise ships from its lagoon

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On Wednesday, Italian transport minister Danilo Toninelli told a parliamentary hearing that giant cruise ships could be diverted away from Venice's centre, where many currently dock. The minister's suggestion involved rerouting one-third of all cruise ships from the city's central Marittima terminal to other nearby ports.

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This website is updated daily by the local government in Venice

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The high-water information service is a special office of the Municipality of Venice that gives updated information about the state and about the development of high-water or flooding events.

You can get information as follows:

calling in Italy the number 0412411996 (answering machine);

looking for data at the information points spread in city centre (town garage at Piazzale Roma, boat stop at Rialto, entrance hall at the town palace of Ca' Farsetti, boat stop of Burano, newsagent's stands at San Giovanni Grisostomo, Santo Stefano, Santa Maria Formosa, Maddalena);

examining the data published on www.comune.venezia.it/maree.

The lowest point in Venice is at +64cm right in front of the main entrance of Saint Mark's Church. The most part of Venice, about 78%, is on a level between 110cm and 140cm.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION from venice Municipality website
What's "acqua alta" (high water)?
"Acqua alta" (high water) is a phenomenon which generally takes place in Venice in winter time, when a combination of astronomical tide, strong south wind (scirocco) and seiche (see glossary below) can cause a larger inflow of water into the Venetian Lagoon.

When does an exceptional tide occur?
Exceptional tides (when the water-line is equal to or more than 140 centimetres on the mareographic zero of "Punta della Salute", located near the Salute Church, in front of St. Mark's Square) statistically occur once every 5 years. They are caused by a combination of various factors, such as the astronomical tide, low pressure on the Tyrrhenian Sea, strong south wind (scirocco) and the Adriatic seiche. Further two larger phenomena also contribute to increase the water level: eustasy (see glossary below) and the subsidence of the Venetian Lagoon, which, together, have caused an altimetric loss of about 23 centimetres in the last century.

How long does an aqua alta last?
High water depends on the tide cycle (the alternation of high and low tides happens every 6 hours): when there is "acqua alta" on the streets this lasts only a few hours during the peak of the high tide (usually 3 to 4 hours). Once water goes down again, things go back to normality.

How often does "acqua alta" occur?
High waters may occur in autumn or winter seasons and are most likely to happen in November and December. But even in these months, high waters usually affect only the lowest parts of the town, such as St. Mark's Square, whereas exceptional high tides statistically occur only once every 5 years.

But how high can high water be?
High water levels are measured on the mareographic zero at "Punta della Salute" and 97% of the town is at +100 centimetres. This means that the actual water-line is always much less than the high water forecast. For example, an exceptional high tide of +140 centimetres means that 90% of the town is covered by water, but even in the lowest parts the water-line won't reach more than 60 centimetres on the streets.

Does Venice completely go under water when "acqua alta" occurs?
No, only exceptional high waters affect the whole town and even on those occasions the water-line is really remarkable only in the lowest areas. These are the flooding rates of the town in relation to high water levels (measured on the mareographic zero): +100 cm: 3,56%; +110 cm: 11,74%; +120 cm: 35,18%; +130 cm: 68,75%; over +140 cm 90% of the town is covered by water.

How many times in a year can a high water of + 110 cm occur?
From 1966 to 2007 high waters of + 110 cm on the mareographic zero occurred only 4 times a year, covering 11% of the town.

What happens in Venice when there's a high tide?
Venice and Venetians have always been used to coping with "acqua alta". These are the City Administration's measures in case of high tide: if there's a sea level forecast of +110 cm on the mareographic zero, the population is alerted by acoustic signals and with text messages (for those registered at the free high tide information service of the City Tide Centre - Centro Maree Comunale). At the same time, elevated platforms are set along the main streets to allow passage. Public waterbuses keep on working, although some lines may be subject to changes. In any case access to most of the town is guaranteed. Only when exceptional high waters occur (higher than 120 cm on the mareographic zero) the famous "acqua alta boots" are really needed, but even on these occasions the inconvenience last just as long as it takes for the water to go down again, which usually happens in a few hours.

How does water rise and fall in Venice?
High water is not brought to town by a swollen river, therefore it must not be confused with a flood, since it is just a natural phenomenon related to the alternation of high and low tides. In fact, water invades the town very slowly from the canals and the rising tide lasts only for some hours. Once the peak is reached (which again lasts a few hours), the water level starts decreasing again until it leaves the streets empty and wet, like after a rainfall.

What to do in Venice when there is "acqua alta"?
"Acqua alta" is not a dangerous phenomenon: it is important to understand that most of the time high tides cause very limited inconvenience to Venetians and tourists. In these cases, the only thing to do is to be patient and wait a few hours for the following ebb. Otherwise, a suggestion for the most curious people is to buy a pair of boots and visit the town in a quite unusual way.

Tel.: 041 2411996

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High Water Information Centre - turismovenezia.it

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The high-water information service is a special office of the Municipality of Venice that gives updated information about the state and about the development of high-water or flooding events.

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This article was published in 2012 in DW, a respected German newspaper.. Have any of the problems been resolved yet?

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Each day, more than 60,000 people visit Venice - more than the entire population of the city. Of those, an increasing number are from cruise ships; with a 439 percent increase in cruise dockings in the past 15 years, according to statistics from the Venice Passenger Terminal. The fabled Italian port is now the most popular cruise destination in Europe.

It is feared that the sheer number of visitors are damaging the city whose economy is based around them.

"Tourism is a double-edged sword," said Peter Debrine, head of the World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme at UNESCO, in an interview with DW. "You can't have those kind of numbers come into a site and not have a negative impact."

Fragile city

Groups such as UNESCO claim that cruise ships in Venice are particularly damaging because of the fragile structure of the city. They say the ships cause tides that erode the foundations of buildings, contribute to pollution and have an impact on the cityscape as they dwarf the city's monuments. While the problem is multifaceted, at its heart is a simple fact: More tourists, in a limited amount of space, are forcing residents out.

"Venice is a small place, without a lot of space," said Matteo Secchi, spokesperson for Venessia, the largest citizen's advocacy group in Venice. "The number of tourists is going up every day, every year, including people coming from the cruise ships. There's too many people in Venice during a normal day."

The MSC Divina, which visited Venice in June, is bigger than the Titanic

Exodus

The issue of tourism making life difficult for natives is not a new one, but things have been getting worse in recent years, residents say.

According to Secchi, increased tourism has contributed to what locals call "the exodus" - Venetians leaving for mainland Italy. Since the 1950s, Venice's population has fallen by more than two-thirds. An electronic ticker near the Rialto Bridge that keeps track of the number of citizens declines almost every day. On November 8, it displayed a new low: 58,483.

"Venice has started to be a city only for the tourists," said Secchi. "And so all the Venetians have left for the mainland. There are more Venetians on the mainland than in Venice."

But as Venice's population has shrunk, the ships just keep getting bigger - bringing more and more passengers.

In June, the MSC Divina sailed into port on her maiden voyage. Owned by MSC Cruises, it is the largest cruise ship to ever visit Venice: at 333 meters long (1,092 feet), it has a gross tonnage three times that of the Titanic. It brought with it 4,500 tourists.

Frustration among Venetians

Residents are becoming increasingly frustrated.

"It's not just one ship per day, but four, five, or six," said Matelda Bottoni, a jewellery designer who lives in Venice, in an interview with DW. "And the tourists [from the ships] come for just one day. They are not interested in the history or culture of Venice. They only buy things."

Cruise operators such as MSC disagree about the damage their ships cause.

"MSC is committed to protecting both the environment and the economy of Venice," said Francesco Balbi, Environmental Coordinator for MSC Cruises, in a statement. "For these reasons, MSC Cruises, together with the rest of the cruise sector, has always been happy to share our views on the issue of cruise ships in Venice with everybody who loves the city as we do."

Debrine said the unique nature of Venice itself makes the problem of tourism more difficult to solve.

"Venice's economy is almost entirely dependent on tourism," he said. "They need the tourists. But, it is also essentially a museum that needs to be preserved. A balance has to be struck."

Over 60,000 tourists visit Venice every day

'Are we loving Venice to death?'

Many Venetians will readily acknowledge the economic boon from tourists. According to the Cruise Venice Committee, cruise ship passengers spend more than 150 million euros ($193 million) annually in the city.

More than 650 ships visit the city's port each year, and each ship provides additional money from docking fees and purchasing supplies such as food and water from local contractors. The cruise sector also employs an estimated 3,000 Venetians - a fact often repeated at the lavish "Festa del Porto" ("Festival of the Port") arranged by the cruise industry at the end of October.

In 2009, Venetians held a funeral to symbolize their city's decline

"It's a paradox, because the tourists are very important for the economy of Venice," said Secchi, who also manages a hotel in the city's Cannaregio district. "The tourists are the economy. They buy everything."

Disneyland?

In 2009, residents held a mock funeral to symbolize the city's decline, followed by another event a year later, in which they handed out maps and free "entrance tickets" to "Veniceland." But the colorful protests, which drew international attention, and have led to regular dialogue with local government leaders, have not slowed the ever-increasing stream of tourists, including those arriving on cruise ships.

To fix the problem, Debrine said both residents and cruise operators need to come together to work out a compromise.

"This is the issue: we have these iconic places, but are we loving them to death?" he said. "The people who live in Venice need to come together and begin that dialogue with each other. Everyone needs to come together in a way that benefits the economy but does not damage the heritage of the site, the outstanding universal value."

Secchi stressed the need to act quickly.

"If we don't fix these problems, Venice will be like Disneyland - just a park for the tourists without people living there," he said. "During the day, you [can] visit the city, and at night, we [will] close the park like in Disneyland."

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Tourism overwhelms vanishing Venice | DW | 09.11.2012

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Each day, more than 60,000 people visit Venice - more than the entire population of the city. Of those, an increasing number are from cruise ships; with a 439 percent increase in cruise dockings in the past 15 years, according to statistics from the Venice Passenger Terminal.