Chronology
The need to provide Venice and other built-up areas in the shallow lagoon with an effective sea defence system follows the devastating flood of 4 November 1966. That day, driven by a strong sirocco wind, the tide reached a height of 194 cm above the tidal datum, the highest ever recorded in the history of Venice. The tidal event began on the night of 3 November. That morning, instead of withdrawing as it should have done under normal tidal ebb and flow conditions, the water continued to rise throughout the day of 4 November until it flooded the whole city. That evening the wind dropped and the water started to flow away. At the same time, a violent sea storm devastated the beaches and broke through the seawall protecting the coast in a number of points, obliging Pellestrina to be evacuated. After this, with the Special Law of 1973, the Italian State declared the problem of Venice to be of "priority national interest".
In the early 1970s, the CNR promoted a first competition of ideas and subsequently the Ministry of Public Works issued a call for tender, in 1980 acquiring the projects presented. The 6 projects proposed were passed for evaluation to a commission of seven hydraulic engineers who were asked to draw up a feasibility study. Known as the "Progettone" and presented in 1981, the study proposed a combination of fixed barriers at the inlets and mobile defence structures. This triggered a long debate involving the institutions, the scientific, political and cultural world, the media and local inhabitants.
The strategies and criteria to be adopted for the safeguarding project were defined by the second Special Law on Venice in 1984. This set up a Committee for Policy, Coordination and Control (known as the "Comitatone", chaired by the Prime Minister and consisting of the relevant institutions at national and local level) and authorised the Ministry of Public Works to proceed with granting of a single concession to be agreed by private negotiation. The need, reiterated also in 1982 in a document from Venice Local Authority, was for speed, but above all to adopt a unitary and organic approach to the safeguarding measures given the complex and delicate context of the lagoon basin by entrusting the work to a single body with the right qualifications. Design and implementation of the measures for the physical safeguarding of the city were entrusted by the Water Authority to the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, a pool of about fifty companies set up in 1982.
After four years of surveys, studies and analyses of the numerous systems of mobile barriers, in 1989 the Consorzio Venezia Nuova presented a complex proposal of measures to safeguard Venice known as the REA Project (Riequilibrio E Ambiente, "Rebalancing and the Environment"). This included the Conceptual Design for the Mobile Barriers at the Lagoon Inlets, the birth of MOSE. After experiments on the prototype and a number of modifications, in 1994 the new preliminary design for the mobile barriers was approved by the Higher Council of Public Works. After also examining other flood defence projects, the body approved the MOSE system.
In 1997, the Water Authority and Consorzio Venezia Nuova presented the environmental impact study (EIS) which in 1998 was given a positive assessment by a commission of five international experts appointed by the Prime Minister, Romano Prodi. In the same year, the design for mobile barriers was given a negative opinion by the Ministry of the Environment Environmental Assessment Commission. On the request of the Committee for Policy, Coordination and Control, MOSE was developed further. In 2001, at the end of the Environmental Impact Assessment procedure, the Council of Ministers, chaired by the Prime Minister, Giuliano Amato, gave the go-ahead for development of the final design, defining a number of conditions. In 2002, the Consorzio Venezia Nuova presented the final design which took the requests of the Ministry of Transport and Port Authority on board, in other words, for curved breakwaters in front of the lagoon inlets and a lock for large shipping at the Malamocco inlet. In 2002, the CIPE (Interministerial Committee for Economic Programming) financed the first tranche of work on the MOSE system covering the three-year period 2002-2004, amounting to €453 million.
In 2003, after approval by the Committee for Policy, Coordination and Control, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi officially opened the first MOSE work sites by laying the first stone. By March 2008, 40% of the work underway in parallel at all three inlets had been completed and €2,443 million had been attributed out of a total cost for the MOSE system of €4,272 million.
On 31 January 2008, the CIPE approved financing of the fifth tranche of €400 million and construction of the caissons, the most important and final part of the project, could begin.
If funding continues to arrive regularly, the work is expected to be completed in 2012.
Read more about this topic: MOSE Project