New report claims Venice sinking five times faster than previously thought

March 26, 2012 – VENICE, IT – So Venice is sinking. New research by U.S. scientists suggests it is sinking more than five times faster than experts in Venice believe. It’s quite obvious to the naked eye (or rather, to the naked ankle when it floods) that parts of Venice are flooding more and more often. But the question remains — how long will it take before it turns from floating jewel to a playground for divers? The answer comes from a new research by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, expected to be published on Wednesday: Venice is still sinking, and sinking at a rate of up to two millimeters per year (0.08 inches). There’s more. Not only is the city being reclaimed by the waters that made it famous, it now looks like it’s actually heading out to sea, as if the glorious capital of the former Maritime Venetian Republic is tired of being a tourist attraction and wants to die in the Adriatic. According to measurements taken over 10 years, Venice is also tilting a bit, about a millimeter or two eastward per year. While this doesn’t mean that you should buy a ticket right away in order to see Venice before it disappears, it raises concern that not enough is being done to save it. A complex system of moving dams around Venice that took decades and millions of dollars to build is nearing completion. The new research could well call into question whether these major works will actually be enough to save the “Floating City.” One of the biggest experts on the state of Venice, Luigi Tosi, of Italy’s National Research Center, pointed out that Venice’s “sinking” was actually a combination of land subsidence and sea level rise. He said the Scripps researchers’ results “tell us nothing new.” “We have published a paper back in 1992 that arrived to the same conclusions,” he said. –MSNBC