Problems | Venice: I am not making this up

Acqua alta: here we go again

March 3, 2010 2 Comments

If there’s one thing people everywhere know about Venice, it’s that sometimes those romantic canals try to barge into your house.

This is the kind of image that is often presented as "the end is nigh" for Venice. As you see, the man is having hysterics.

Rather than “flooding,” Venetians call this acqua alta, or “high water” (literally “high tide”). Or, depending on how deep it’s likely to be, sometimes they call it “acqua in terra,” or “water on the ground,” which is less dramatic and often more accurate.

I’ve got water on the brain at the moment because night before last, the warning siren sounded again. It indicated the lowest predicted level, one out of four, which was nice, and in the end we barely got any at all. With rare exceptions, acqua alta, more than being some kind of apocalyptic affliction, as it is often portrayed, is really a low-grade nuisance. If it happens often, as it has this winter, it becomes as annoying as any other uninvited guest who doesn’t realize it’s time to go home.

There are so many notions people have about high water, based on the generally inaccurate and overwrought accounts in the press, that I thought I’d review and readjust a few of them.

It’s always happening, or likely to happen. Not really. This winter we’ve had more acqua in terra (again, not really what I’d call “alta”) more often than many other winters. On the other hand, there have been years when I haven’t put my boots on even once. Yet all kinds of claims keep being thrown around in stories written about this little phenomenon. The website of the basilica of San Marco states that water begins to flood the Piazza San Marco, just in front of the church, 250 days a year. Check my math, but that works out to 8 months. A photo caption on the National Geographic website claims that Venice has high water ten times a month. That’s crazy talk.
It creates, or will create, really big, really bad problems.
If for some reason your kids (or somebody else's) don't have boots, high water can be somewhat demanding. Then again, why don't they just go barefoot? I've done it and I'm still alive.

I’m not sure what people think those might be, but the words “acqua alta” seem to inspire a lot of hyperventilating outside Venice (and even inside Venice, mostly from merchants around the Piazza San Marco). I’m not saying that having to put the stuff in your store up on higher shelves isn’t annoying, or that having to sweep out the receding brackish water and then wash the floor with fresh water isn’t annoying. But in 9 cases out of 10, the situation doesn’t exceed the annoyance level — not much worse than having to shovel the snow out of the driveway for the fiftieth time this winter.
It’s going to be alarmingly deep. Those fun photos of people rowing boats in the Piazza San Marco don’t ever show how deep the water actually is. (In fact, those boats can be rowed in four inches of water.) Venice isn’t flat as a griddle — the streets undulate as much as the water does, which you discover when the water comes ashore. There can be dry spots even in a wet street.
The entire city’s drowning. The municipal tide center reports that when the tide is predicted to reach 110 cm above mean sea level, 14 percent of Venice has water on the ground. And that that might not be a depth of more than an inch or two. Fourteen percent doesn’t strike me as an immense area, and several percentages of that would always be the Piazza San Marco, the lowest point in the city.
When the water starts to rise in the Piazza San Marco, it looks like this. Sometimes it doesn't get any higher than this amount. I guess you could say Venice was flooding, but there are still plenty of dry spots left.
It’s going to hurt you, or hurt something. Not that I’ve noticed. Acqua alta is nothing like real floods. Rivers overflowing their banks in torrential rainstorms are dangerous; tsunamis are dangerous. With acqua alta, nobody dies. People survive, buildings survive, art works are fine. The water rises very gently, even politely. Despite the distraught tones in which the event is almost always reported, I still don’t understand why the mere term seems to have acquired such a menacing overtone.
If the water rises near a low sidewalk, it flows over the edge. It's even more common -- as here in the Piazza San Marco -- for it to come up through the storm drains. Naturally it also goes out the same way.

Acqua alta is not dangerous. It’s not even especially upsetting. In my experience, if it happens more than a few times, though, it can begin to seem like a two-year-old who’s gotten into the “Why?” groove. Nothing wrong with it, really, except that it gets to be irritating. The kid turns three, and spring and summer come, and all of this fades from memory.

In my next post: A few real-life aspects of acqua alta which tend to mitigate its fearsome reputation.

True, this was not one of our most amusing moments. And it didn't stop there, nor did our impressive barrier do much good to keep it out. This was once in six years. — True, this was not one of our most amusing moments. And it didn't stop there, nor did our impressive barrier do much good to keep it out. But this has happened only once (for about two hours) in the six years we've lived here.

If you were looking for a new apartment and saw this, you might think twice. The barrier you could kind of accept, but a pump as well? Not good.

Events, History, Problems, Tourism

Carnival: mopping up

February 19, 2010 No Comments

You thought Carnival was over with the sprinkling of the ashes on penitential hairdos? Not quite.

Carnival doesn’t slink away under cover of darkness when the marangon, the basso profundo bell in the campanile of San Marco, tolls midnight on Martedi Grasso. Two things have to happen for it to really be over — in my opinion, that is. Two things which are more predictable than the swallows returning to Capistrano.

One of the regular car ferries is engaged for the carnival trucks.

The first is the pulling apart and hauling away of the traveling amusement park (what they generically call a “Luna Park” here) which has been gracing the Riva dei Sette Martiri since — I believe — early December.

These people (as in much of the world) are almost exclusively families which have dedicated many generations to the setting up, operating, pulling down, and rolling on to the next location of their ride or concession stand.

After three months, I’m going to miss the smell of the hot-doughnut-frying-oil and the screeching of the children. It was fun strolling along the waterfront late every afternoon to mingle and kibitz. And I am convinced that as long as there is at least one small child walking home carrying a small plastic bag containing water and a goldfish, the world will not come to an end.

All this concentrated traffic is a lot to ask of a stretch of walkway which is made of small stones atop packed damp sand.

Anyway, the men start work early on Ash Wednesday morning, and by Thursday morning the funfair is gone. The only sign they’ve ever been here are the patches of new cement filling the holes in the pavement where their big rigs (or something) went astray.

Speaking of itinerant carnies, I went to the small town of Bergantino a few years ago when I was working on a story about the Po River (National Geographic, May, 2002). This former farming town has, since the Twenties and much more since the Sixties, become dedicated to the design, construction, and (eventually) operation of carnival rides — merry-go-rounds, bumper cars, etc. Despite the town’s modest size — it’s really just a village of some 2,000 people, when they’re all there, I mean, and not out on the road — they’ve carved away a heavy slice of this international industry for Italy. One of the major markets for their inventions is the USA.

Well, wherever they’ve gone, I’m already missing them.

The second element of the end of Carnival is the orgy of articles, editorials, and letters in the Gazzettino reviewing, celebrating, and vilifying the festivities just concluded. I can tell you without even having opened the paper that there will have been too many people for this fragile city to support; that the managing of this predictable overload will have shown inexcusable organizational flaws and failures to resolve the most elementary large-event necessities (toilets, in a word); that the money taken in doesn’t justify the stress and expense to the city; that it will have lacked originality and creative genius, and that for the residents and shopkeepers of Campo Santa Margherita, the ten days just concluded have been nothing less than at least six of the nine rings of hell.

And every year, the apex of all the claims and counter-claims: That this event would be (or ought to have been, or next year definitely will be) the “Carnival of the Venetians.” I saw Venetians having a fine time carnivalizing in their own modest way in various neighborhoods of the city, but not in the Piazza San Marco. I’d have given you a cash prize if you’d found any Venetians besides Lino in the Piazza San Marco.

Going-home time near San Marco. I count eight launches ready to load up and head back to the mainland, and this picture is only one third of the traffic panorama. This traffic is not composed of Venetians.

So when this wish to involve Venetians is mentioned, as if it were obviously a good thing, I ask myself if the speaker believes that a “Carnival of the Venetians” would have the slightest probability of pouring the millions of euros into the municipal strongboxes that all those tourists do. After all, Venetians don’t spend money on hotel rooms, restaurant meals, fancy masks, or whatever else makes Carnival matter. So frankly, what would be the point of spending money to organize a ten-day carnival for the few remaining locals? Just wondering.

Let’s go to the videotape (so to speak). Here is a smattering of the Gazzettino’s overview of Carnival 2010, as published yesterday:

The organizers claim that 150,000 people came the first Sunday; 250,000 the second Sunday (let that sink in…) and 40,000 on Martedi Grasso. Altogether, they say a total of 800,000 people came to Venice during Carnival. Perhaps not much compared to Rio, but for a city that covers a mere three square miles, not bad.

They estimate that each visitor spent 50 euros, for an exciting total income of 40 million euros. Not sure where this number came from; a professor of the Economics of Tourism at the University of Venice says that the “bite and run” day-trippers spend an average of 30 euros each day, while the more solid tourist spends 150. In any case, let’s not quibble over a million more or a million less. Restaurants and hotels certainly made money, not to mention the ACTV and their spectacularly expensive vaporetto tickets.

One new comment is by the businesspeople (especiallythose of restaurants and cafes) in the Piazza San Marco — they don’t want a maxi-stage there anymore. I’m not sure why, but I imagine it’s because it takes up too much space which needs to be available for them to put out their tables and chairs.

I could go on, but it’s probably not that interesting. These few days following Carnival are mainly spent in a sort of emotional and mental scrubbing and disinfecting.

The summary is fairly concise. Apart from numbers, claims, and counter-claims as to success or failure, as one reporter wrote, “Now the Venetians can give a deep sigh of relief and put their hands on their foreheads and say, “‘Once again we’ve lived through it.'”

Boatworld, Problems, Tourism, Venetian-ness, Water

Motondoso, Part 4: The lagoon’s-eye view

January 27, 2010 1 Comment

Quick review so far: Who or what does motondoso hurt? You’re going to say “Buildings and sidewalks.” It’s obvious.

Buildings are what people care about — logical, since no buildings, no Venice. Some Venetians have told me that they don’t believe anything will be done to resolve motondoso till an entire building collapses, a notion that once seemed idiotic until I came to realize that it could happen. A building collapsing, I mean, not that it would lead to any meaningful action, though one can always dream.

So perhaps some structure really will have to be sacrificed, like an unblemished white heifer, for the benefit of the tribe. The idea has a romantic, mythic quality to it that’s almost appealing.

You could also say “People,” about which I haven’t said much, if anything, and you’d be right again. The most obvious hazard that waves present is the risk of capsizing; every so often you read about some tourists in gondolas who have gone into the drink. There was even a traghetto (gondola ferry that crosses the Grand Canal) that got blindsided by an anomalous wave and the whole cargo of passengers went overboard. I seem to recall that a small child got caught beneath the overturned boat, but one of the gondoliers pulled him out in time. Some years ago an American woman drowned. Fun.

Erosion caused by the waves continually sucking soil out from under and between stones means the stones collapse, but sometimes a person collapses with them. It happened to a woman walking along near the Giardini one day — she put her foot on a stone, it gave way, and faster than you can say “Doge Obelerio Antenoreo” she fell into a hole higher than she was. Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised; they’d been sending complaints to the city for months to no avail.

Then there was the child playing on a stretch of greensward at Sacca Fisola facing the Giudecca Canal when a hole suddenly opened up beneath him. If a man with quick reflexes hadn’t grabbed him, the child would long since have gone out to sea. Events such as these — and may they be few — no longer inspire surprise.

This satellite view of the Venetian lagoon gives a general hint of the variations in depth. These variations are part of what make it a lagoon and not, say, Baffin Bay.

But what if you weren’t a human? This question may not often cross your mind, but Venice looks radically different to its other fauna, and not a few flora, as well. And waves are not their friend.

What really makes Venice so special is its lagoon, which covers 212 square miles. Without the lagoon and its concomitant canals, Venice would merely be a batch of really old buildings — beautiful or not, depending on your taste — which could just as well be sitting on the outskirts of Enid, Oklahoma.

I will be expatiating on the lagoon on another occasion. (A Venetian word, by the way: laguna). The witness (that would be me) is instructed (by me) to stick to the topic at hand, which is waves.

A more detailed view of the lagoon immediately surrounding Venice gives a better idea of how the area is shaped. These shallows, though, are not barene. (Photo: oceana.org)

The Venetian lagoon is a silent but intimate partner in Venice’s fate. Not only are the waves undermining the foundations of the city, they are scouring away the foundations of the lagoon. And while damage to buildings is certainly important, there is arguably even more damage being done to its waters. And they’re going to be a lot harder to fix than a palace.

So if you haven’t got time to watch what waves can do to buildings, you should take a look at what they do to the lagoon — specifically to the barene (bah-RAY-neh), the marshy, squidgy islets strewn about out there. Venice was built on 118 of them.

These are barene. Looks like lots, but 60 years ago there were half again as many. That was a real lagoon.

Barene are the building blocks of the lagoon. They form 20 percent of its total area, and are crucial to everything in it: microorganisms, plants, animals, birds, fish and, till not so long ago, also people.

Let’s say you have less than no interest in ecosystems and their inhabitants, at least the inhabitants smaller than humans. Barene, along with their myriad meandering capillary channels, are perfect for slowing down the speed and force of the incoming tide. They act as a built-in assortment of natural barriers which, if they could remain where they were, would already be limiting the force and the quantity of acqua alta in good old Venice.

But over the past 60 years, half of the lagoon’s barene have been lopped away by waves. The World Wildlife Fund estimated, several years ago, that at the current rate of erosion (erosion caused by motondoso), in 50 years there would be no more barene left.

A cross-section of a barena near Burano. If you were an endangered bird, or even just a really tired one, this patch of mud would be more beautiful to you than twenty Titians.

Why do we care? Even if all we’re really interested in is buildings, we care because as the barene diminish, the tide can reach the city faster and ever more aggressively. The natural brakes, so to speak, are being taken out.

And we also care because, as I have probably said before, whatever a wave can do to a batch of mud it can and will eventually do to bricks and marble.

Part 5: Solutions?

Waves are as destructive to wetlands as they are to buildings, but the wetlands can't even put up a fight.

The large pilings were put in ages ago, to mark the line between the channel and the barena. As you see, the waves have shrunk the barena, so the large pilings are only sort of symbolic. As a bonus, we see the remnants of the wall of smaller pilings which was installed to prevent any further erosion of the barena.

The distance between pilings and barena here is just another of many examples of the very simple effect of waves.

I remember when this channel was only half this wide. Most of these boats belong to people from the mainland who come all this way so they can just sit. Lovely, admittedly, but they bring waves and take away part of the lagoon when they go home.

Tourist launches of all sizes offer day trips around the lagoon.

Taxis are always in a hurry, especially on airport runs. (Photo: Italia Nostra)

Ordinary working barges at Sant' Erasmo on a Sunday afternoon. Their owners are almost certainly out in smaller motorboats, but tomorrow it will be back to work with all of these.

History, Nature, Problems, Water

Motondoso: Suck it up

January 18, 2010 No Comments

The dynamics of waves aren’t so hard to understand — anybody who’s ever gone to the beach remembers the thump of the wave that has just arrived. (Am I the only person who’s ever noticed how much that sound resembles the slamming of the car doors as your family arrives for a visit?).

We don’t really notice what the thump does to the sand because an infinite series of them has already created the sand. It’s not a bad idea, though, to recall that the sand was once a hefty piece of mountain.

What isn’t so obvious, and maybe is even less obviously disturbing, is the hissing sound the wave makes as it departs. It is caused by a force called “risucchio,” (ree-SOOK-yo) which literally means “re-sucking,” though I suppose “undertow” is close enough for Anglophones. And it’s the force that tears asunder what was once clearly put together by God, man, or whatever’s in between.

This is the ferryboat which carries wheeled vehicles to and from the Lido. When it approaches the landing stage, the captain throws the engines into reverse to slow and stop the boat, then keeps the engines grinding in reverse in order to maintain tension on the lines. This is considered necessary for safety. The result is an impressive vortex of spinning water..

Cruise ships create the same effect when they are maneuvering out of their berth. Here, the TK Princess is on its way. In high season there can be as many as seven cruise ships in the Maritime Zone; although they don't create waves, the force of their engines here has gouged a crater TK feet deep. — Cruise ships create the same effect when they are maneuvering out of their berth. Here, the "Ruby Princess" is on its way out. In high season there can be as many as seven cruise ships in the Maritime Zone.

Even natural waves caused by the wind, aided and abetted by the retreating tide, will do some of this work of demolition. But then there are the big public boats — and I’m thinking specifically of waterbuses. They come in several versions here, but the highest number are the vaporettos.

The vaporetto is a specific type of boat, and the public-transport company, which goes by its acronym ACTV, operates 52 of them. Sometimes called “battello,” the vaporetto has a regularly scheduled cousin correctly called a “motoscafo,” though it gets called “vaporetto” too for convenience. It sits lower in the water and carries fewer people, though you might not believe it if you try to get on one at rush hour.

At this moment, the ACTV website informs us that the company operates “about 152” waterborne vehicles. (“About”? You mean you don’t know?) They break it down thus: 52 vaporettos, 55 motoscafos, 10 “single agent motoscafos,” which I can’t interpret for you just now, 16 bigger vaporettos that travel the lagoon (“vaporetti foranei”), 9 motonavi, and 8 ferryboats.

Naturally all of these vehicles cause waves, but what compounds the effect is the undertow they create when they stop at one of the 100 or so bus stops (city and lagoon) to drop and pick up passengers.

It’s pretty simple. Here is an illustration of what happens every time one of these craft comes and goes:

The vaporetto approaches the next stop. The captain may not have noticed whether is going with or against the tide; if he's going with it, he'll probably arrive faster than he meant to and have to hit the reverse really hard to break the momentum and get back into position to tie up. — The vaporetto approaches the next stop. The captain may not have noticed whether he is going with or against the tide; if he's going with it, he'll probably arrive faster than he meant to and have to hit the reverse really hard to break the momentum and get back into position to tie up.

He reverses the engines to stop the boat; the mariner throws a rope and ties the boat to the dock.

The captain revs the engine in order to bring the boat parallel to the dock. The water shows the effect of the earlier reverse and the momentary forward. — The captain revs the engine in order to bring the boat parallel to the dock. The water shows the effect of the earlier reverse and the subsequent forward.

To keep tension on the line while loading and unloading passengers, the captain keeps the engines at a very high rate of rpm's.

Everybody aboard; the mariner unties the boat and the captain begins to reverse again. This will give him the necessary momentum to get moving forward again. Sounds strange, but that's how it works. So: Back we go again. — Everybody's aboard; the mariner unties the boat and the captain begins to reverse again. This maneuver enables him to turn the boat slightly to starboard, which puts him the ideal position to throw the gears into "forward" and move on to the next stop. So: Back in reverse we go.

And wham! We're starting to move forward again.

And off we go. On to the next stop, where the same sequence of maneuvers will be repeated. If this looks even slightly disturbing out here in the open water, imagine it happening virtually constantly all along the Grand Canal. All day.

On September 15, 1881, the first vaporetto (“Regina Margherita”) began regular service in the Grand Canal. The imminent arrival of this creation caused tremendous distress and revolt among the gondoliers, who foresaw their doom. Their turmoil is the focus of a marvelous film, “Canal Grande” (1943), starring several then-well-known Venetian actors, such as Cesco Baseggio, plus a number of real gondoliers. Too bad it’s all in Italian.

The first vaporetto was soon followed by a fleet of eight, run by a French company, the “Compagnie des bateaux Omnibus.” Nothing against that noble nation, I merely note that Napoleon Bonaparte, who conquered and devastated Venice in 1797, was also French.

In 1890 the Societa’ Veneta Lagunare began service between Venice and assorted lagoon locations. And so it has gone.

Lino remembers when there were still very few vaporetto stops in the Grand Canal; they were at San Marco, Accademia, San Toma’, Rialto, the railway station, and probably Piazzale Roma, though he won’t swear to it. In what was still a flourishing local culture, the Venetians could find almost everything needed for daily life in their own little neighborhoods.

This is a bus stop, essentially a dock called a "pontile," to which the vaporetto is tied while exchanging passengers.

There are now 17 stops on the Grand Canal. They were not installed as something useful to the residents, as noted above, but for the transport of tourists. Shops have begun to close (I don’t lay this fact at the feet of the wave-and-sucking-causing public transport), so as the population has dropped, and the number of tourists has risen, the locals have had to range further afield to find forage, so to speak, and at the same time have had to use public transport which is usually overstuffed with tourists and their luggage. During Carnival, most Venetians do their utmost to stay the hell at home.

The city recognizes that there aren’t enough vaporettos most of the year; during the summer (and Carnival) extra routes and supplementary vehicles are laid on. But eventually some crisis point will be reached where the number of bodies requiring to be moved and the available space in which to do it will collide. To use a term which nobody in the navigation business wants to hear.

Zwingle’s Fifth Law states that “You can get used to anything.” You may quibble, but I can attest that you can definitely get used to this roiling and churning and sucking of many waters. This isn’t good, but neither can you travel all day in a constant state of rage and anguish.

You can give yourself an interlude of relief by going for a little stroll. Ignoring the roaring of motors and the shattering of waves, you can really relax in the city which is extolled for having no cars. I think people who say that must merely mean “no traffic.”

Before too much longer, the Grand Canal is going to resemble Runway 3 at O'Hare. At the moment, it's only like I-95 from Washington to Richmond.