Archivio tag: venice italy high water

venice -The wells

 

The problem of water in the early settlements

DSCN7061During the barbarian invasions , the few inhabitants of the islands and coasts, were facing their needs of water with the ” rainwater collection .” With the arrival of entire populations fleeing from the mainland running from the continuous invasions ,the water supply becomes a major problem – was not enough rain water but they needed also water deposits . First of all was necessary to have a collection surface sufficiently wide around the well itself, towards which converge the rainwater : for this reason the Venetian fountains are located almost exclusively in the wide fields or courts .
The first natural wells were created by digging a pit in the sand, where the water came from groundwater through a hard layer of clay , which was located in the basement.In that way” the Venetian wells” borned .
Pozzo_VeneziaThe excavation was generally below the average of the sea level (5-6 meters), the walls were covered with a layer of clay of 50-60 cm. In the bottom, at the center of the excavation was placed a slab of stone on which is built the barrel .A series of open channels , were placed along the perimeter of the tank ( i cassoni ) .At the top of the box- there was a vertical element the connector ( la Piela ) , covered by a stone slab ( the seal ) with small holes ( i gattoli .) The floor was tilted towards the “gattoli” , and the end was (la vera da pozzo) the fountain head used both as a parapet and support to the pulley with which the Venetian women drew water with buckets .
Some of these were obtained from large “capitelli” from old Roman constructions .

26102013943Many Venetian wells have inscriptions or bas-reliefs relating to the family who had taken charge of their construction .

At the beginning of the fifteenth century Venice reached 1000 000 inhabitants, ( the first places among the most populated cities in Europe). Plague of 1348 reduced the population to one third. The fear of water pollution,inhibited the use of the fountains ,and searching other sources of water :the fluvial source( the Brenta river ) .
A series of laws of 1425 diverts the rivers flowing into the lagoon away from Venice,
and for reasons of pollution proibited to the boats to climb in places closer to Venice.
The boats( burchi ) equipped to bring drinking water ,were filled from the river with a kind of slide and they can approach under the barrier between the lagoon and the river.The watherman ( Acquaroli )- carrying water from Brenta river to Venice with barges , have had the task of filling the public wells and prevent the theft of the water from them.

In June 23, 1884 begins the supply of water through aqueduts from the river Brenta , and in July : is signed by the Municipality the renew of the contract for the supply of water through pipes, (the citizen aqueduct )
In 1900 the aqueduct of Venice is extended to the Lido.26102013933

The water problem in Venice today,

There are dozens of springs scattered in the fields and squares of Venice . But one of the most frequently asked questions is as follows: ” You can drink the water of the fountains in the city? ” . The answer is definitely “Yes .”
The water that falls from the fountains is potable and tastes better than tap water . Fountains of Venice receive water from groundwater coming from the high Val Padana .

The fountains in Venice are distributed throughout the island city . Almost every field has ,or had , a fountain, often accompanied by a well or even popping out from the well.The number of the old wells is estimated to be much higher (157)  according to the historical memory of the people, but not all working  .

One of the reasons is the consumption estimated for the fountain which is about 2,000 euro / year each, and because of rising costs the Municipality has reduced the output pressure from the fountains through a reducer but due to the unfortunate phenomenon of a whitish spot on the cast-iron column and a certain difficulty in drinking , that leads anyway to an expense cost for only the historical center of 74 000 € / year (only wather usage)

san marco 055san marco 092
But don’t worry the Wine Fountain will save us..At the opening of the carnival of Venice, we toast with an abundant red wine that flows from Wine Fountain ,set up in Piazza San Marco .

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Venice-The highest tide



The highest tide .
04 November 1966 is a fateful day of the recent Venetian history that marked
a turning point in the secular defense of Venice from the aggressions of the natural elements .The tide begins to rise in the late evening of November 3 , when it reaches one meter and 27 centimeters. At dawn on November 4, when he had to start to flow , due to the combination of meteorological values ​​and negative astrological, a strong sirocco wind
beginning of a new storm and at the first half of the day the water level had touched the highest level ever achieved in human memory of 1.94 cm.celular 137

“On the coasts the storm caused flooding and serious dammage.On the Murano island the waves are higher than 4 meters ,Malamocco is all submerged under the water, for the second time in its history,in Pelestrina island, 3000 people have been evacuated ,in the entrance of the Venice’s harbor a ship sank after being rammed by a Yugoslavian ship .The crew members were rescued . ”

high tide

The wind continued to swell the sea pushing it into the lagoon , breaking the historical eighteenth century ” embankments “(the wall of defense that borders the lagoon from the sea ), ten-point opening holes that put at risk the inhabitants of the Veneto coast ,blowing with the settler violence to the porches of St. Mark’s Square flooded by four feets above
the pavement, while the basilica, for the first time in history was completely flooded as the rest of the entire city.
The perturbation across the nord of the Italy and the event provoked in the following days the flooding of many rivers provoking the dead of a hundred people .The Arno invades the center of Florence with the most severe damage to cultural heritage than Venice.
The city of Venice ,without electricity and telephone signal in the cold, with residual fuel oil
dispersed from the boilers flooded (that marked the walls of houses and buildings) , with a quantity of debris and garbage that it will take several days to clean.Thousand of the ground floors of shops was devastated by the tidal.
Thousands of documents of great historical and artistic value of the: Marciana Library , State Archives , the Querrini Stampalia the Cini Foundation ,was ruined.
The only damage to the city center will be rounded to 35 billion lire at the time .(1 euro = 1936,27 lire)
But the more serious will be the psychological trauma , and not just for the Venetians ,
realizing the risk that the city , a symbol of the beauty of creative and artistic intelligence , crossed.after the dramatic event of November 4, the problem of the survival of Venice , becoming international , even for the strong mobilization of UNESCO.

OTHER  article M.O.S.E. http://dipoco.altervista.org/venezia-m-o-s-e/

 

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Venice – exodus of the population

 

Exodus of the population

Exodus of the population

Exodus of the populationis one of the main problem of   Venice and  is caracterised by the continued decline of the resident population in the historic center, beginning with the second half of the past century .

It is a phenomenon that manifests  everywhere in the old cities , and justified by the general trend to live in contexts more functional for modern life , generally in the outskirts of the centers of the city themselves.

The problem is that Venice is not a modern city , but a historic city, the outskirts of which is represented by islands and estuary,while the urban Mestre-Marghera is, in fact, another city with many facilities.

For Venice this general trend has been accentuated by the high cost of housing, the development of motorization and high costs of maintenance of the buildings . Within fifty years there are reduced to two-thirds the number of residents in the historic center from 175,000 in 1951 to 64,000 in 2002 ( data collected from special censuses ) .

Today, more than the exodus to the mainland , aging of the population to determine the decline of residents in the historic center .Meanwhile in the sixties the number of births and deaths was almost echivalent  today the number of deaths are more than the double of the new borned population . An old population of residents with age from 60 years old is nearly three times higher than that of young people up to 20 years.

We can identify four stages in this exodus , coinciding with as many decades :

1951-61 exodus from overcrowding , and degradation, incompatible with the new lifestyles

1961-71 exodus from non restoration -of those who had no means for the restoration of their houses to move to Mestre city .

1971-81 exodus from restoration – the big scale restoration is begining; the large estate agents entered on the market,and increased the competition

exodus of the population

exodus of the population

1991 – exodus from the market – proliferation of second homes of non-residents , prices are soaring and impiede the Venetians to return to the mainland.

From young and dynamic city which was made it throbbing of the beginning of the last century, now Venice is emptied of the many craft and trade activities, with a population less and less busy and older, with many places disabled or owned by wealthy Italians or foreigners who lives few days on the year into a city more and more like a big hotel.

And if the physical survival is certainly possible because natural phenomena are best known and predictable;economic and social aspects , are perhaps more complex and difficult because so are the nature of the human being.

See also

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6035047.stm

 

 

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Venice -ACQUA ALTA (high water)

 

 

 

Venice -ACQUA ALTA (high water)

guida_turistica_acqua_alta_a_veneziaWith this term the Venetians indicates the invading tide , at certain times of the year and for a short time ,in some areas of the low city .

As is known,  the natural phenomenon which consists in rhythmic swing level
the sea, in consequence of the mutual gravitational attractions that are
between the heavenly bodies (mainly the moon and the sun .) The amplitude and the period of the astronomical tide is different from sea to sea . Generally in the Mediterranean
the oscillation is small ( a few decimetres ) while in the Adriatic  it is wider ,and in
the Gulf of Venice reaches its greatest amplitude 120 cm. At Venice historic center,
value is  officially took on the Tidal station situated in “Punta della salute”(the peak of the health ) which records the data of the tide gauge located in the channel Giudeca( old tide gauge ) and the new tide gauge located just a few meters away from it on the other side of the channel  .Are considered ” normal” the tide that sways in the  limits of 80 and – 50 cm ; supported that with the values ​​between 80 and 109 cm; and exceptional what is equal or exceeds 110 cm.
The first historical reference to ” High water in Venice” does Paul Deacon in” Historia Langobardum “in the year 569.Other vague quotes about it back in the years
782,840,885 . References of the second millennium have more precise dates :
-February 1240 – ” invaded the streets more than  the height of a man ”
-25 February 1341 – ” two feet even more ”
-1386 – “Eight feet most of the usual”
-10 August 1410 – “large water growing in all the earth that was never view”
-10 November 1442 – ” four steps above the ordinariness ”
-3 October 1535 – ” so much water that the wells were dammaged ”
-2 November 1559 – ” high waters in the streets ”
12th October 1574 – ” Lido di Chioggia is broken in five places”
– November 1686 – ” the fundamentals (the banks) almost all submerged and the gondolas were going  into haberdashery ”
-21 December 1717 – ” come to the steps of the high altar of San Antonio church”
It should be noted that in the past , many floods were due to the overflow of the rivers
in the lagoon.Then these rivers are diverted from the lagoon.
But , thanks to the institution of civil engineering of Venice (1848) , the quotes are more precise :
-1848 Water reached +140 cm
-1867 … +153 Cm
In the new century, it should be noted

-On 4 November 1966 it was achieved the level of +194 cm at 18:00 o clock
the highest tide ever recorded in the history of observations.

-2002- a record year of tides.
-16 November : +147 cm,
-14 November – December  8 :   “32- tides; more than  +80 centimeters of which  10 are above of +110  and 5 above of +120 cm”

 

The main reason is attributed to the phenomenon of subsidence , both of natural and
anthropogenic origin due to outcoming “emungimenti” of water and gas from underground. Has been esteemed a lowering of the land  -4 cm , due to the first phenomen and -10 for the second ,and +2 are here recovered thanks to the elasticity of land after the arrest of “emungimenti” in seventies.
Then there is another element contribution and the natural “eutatismo “- raising the average  level of the sea  ​​attributed to the melting of polar ice caps caused by the
Earth’s average temperature . This increase was calculated to be +11 cm.

The phenomenon is especially common in autumn and spring , when combined
with the” sirocco “winds , which , exhaling from the channel along the entire length of sea​basin , impede the smooth flow of water ; or” bora” , hindering instead locally  lagoons and rivers flowing from the Venetian coast .

The damage produced by high waters are of various types , being attributable to at least two categories:
– damage to physical structures – degradation or deterioration in the walls , through the
phenomenon of so-called capillary rise of water brackish .(the wetting and subsequent
the evaporation and crystallization produces salt and with time the disintegration of the mortar ,ACQUA ALTAnot only those of the perimeter in contact with water but also in the interior of the building. )
– Socio-economic damage – are the result of the interruption of production activities ,
the loss of well-being of both residents and tourist

Prospects : the defense of the tides – the temporary separation of the lagoon from the sea with barriers at the inlets of the harbors -MOSE -modullo sperimentale eletromagnetico,(electromechanical experimental module)        http://dipoco.altervista.org/venezia-m-o-s-e/

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