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Saving Venice

The historic city calls upon Scripps and a multifaceted team of experts to help decipher the mysteries lying beneath its waters.

By Mario Aguilera

THERE WAS SOMETHING DIFFERENT about this project.

The fact struck geochemist Tony Rathburn while in the laboratory of Thetis SPA, an Italian environmental engineering firm and Scripps collaborating partner, as he examined research samples. He would do so while fine art lovers passed him by as they examined displays on the grounds of the same historic building that Thetis called home.

For Principal Development Engineer Bill Boyd, the uniqueness of the project became apparent while flying over the city's masterful, centuries-old architecture and experiencing an "unbelievable" feeling of flying back into medieval times.

For microbiologist Doug Bartlett, it was the intriguing idea of studying sediment core samples that, with each deepening layer, would transport him back century by century and the notion of perhaps finding traces of the Black Plague that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages.

Working in Venice, Italy, the celebrated city of romance, gondolas and Marco Polo, has presented rare opportunities and challenges for a handful of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego scientists.

The diverse team assembled for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Sediment, or SIOSED, research group is probing the mix of processes dealing with dredging and reusing sediment lying beneath historic Venice's lagoon. SIOSED was launched two years ago after the City of Venice's Water Authority, through its concessionary, Consorzio Venezia Nuova, and Thetis approached Scripps for a scientific analysis of sediment ecotoxicology and related issues in the lagoon.

Venice officials must consistently grapple with environmental issues related to sediment processes, as the shallow lagoon—1 to 1.5 meters (3.3 to 5 feet) deep on average—must continually be dredged to allow a steady stream of commercial vessels and cruise ships.

The SIOSED team's analysis will guide near-daily efforts to safely relocate tons of sediment as well as general coastal management projects. When sediment is dredged and transplanted to another part of the lagoon, how do the chemical properties of the water change? How do microscopic bacteria react? What about flora and fauna in the fragile lagoon ecosystem? And, apart from signs of plagues of bygone eras, what pathogens or other hazards might be lurking down deep?

The answers to these questions are vital for the maintenance and conservation of Venice's environment. Beyond dredging, the SIOSED team's findings could be applied to other estuary and wetland environments facing threats from flooding or sea level rise.

SIOSED's project leaders hope their multidisciplinary approach becomes a new asset for policymakers, city planners, and environmental managers in coastal cities around the world in an era of unpredictable global change.

More about Venice and the Scripps SIOSED project...

"SIOSED is being developed in Italy but its lessons could be applied to other coastal cities around the world...We have all these people getting together and trying to speak the same scientific language—it's challenging but it also makes it very exciting."
-Dimitri Deheyn