Venice is threatened by rising sea levels. Will the city be forced to relocate?

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🗞️ Driving the news: Scientists warn that Venice could eventually face relocation or massive engineering interventions as rising sea levels threaten the historic city over the coming centuries

🔭 The context: A new study published in Scientific Reports assessed possible strategies to protect the Italian lagoon city based on projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Venice has already experienced increasing flooding over the past 150 years due to rising sea levels, storm surges from the Adriatic Sea and gradual land subsidence
• Severe flooding in 2019 caused extensive damage, including to St Mark’s Basilica
• Researchers examined several adaptation pathways, from building dikes and large flood barriers to eventually relocating parts of the city if sea levels rise dramatically

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Venice illustrates the growing challenge facing many low-lying coastal regions worldwide
• Rising seas driven by climate change, caused by glacier melt and thermal expansion of warming oceans, could threaten major cities and ecosystems across the globe, forcing governments to consider costly adaptation measures or even relocation strategies

⏭️ What’s next: Researchers emphasize the need for long-term planning, noting that major coastal defenses can take 30–50 years to design and construct
• Without sustained action, Venice could face increasingly frequent flooding as the century progresses

📈 One stat: The ground beneath Venice is sinking by about 1 millimeter per year, worsening the impact of rising sea levels

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