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Venice, by virtue of its geographic situation will always be sinking as a course of nature.
A research team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recently concluded that Venice is sinking 2 millimeters per year...not catastrophic on a single year basis, but threatens the long-term viability and sustainability of the location.
Location: do the economic advantages of a location outweigh the environmental liabilities of the location? How do these competing factors influence the development of a city? For additional information on this story see: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-venice-hasnt.html
Day to day, even looking into next year the rate of 2 millimeters per year may not seem drastic. To a city that has been around for hundreds of years, it's assumed the city plans to stay standing for hundreds more. Considering the age of the city, say in a couple hundred more years, some buildings could begin to take in water. It is also possible that certain parts of the city could be sinking faster than others. There is a similar situation in Mexico City where it was built on a lake and each year that source diminishes due to the demand of water by its residents. Certain parts of the city are sinking and some buildings are slanted due to the results. These cities are beautiful but reality shows that as time passes, it will probably only get worse. Hopefully preventions can be taken to at least reduce the speed of sinking so that people after us can appreciate the architecture and atmosphere the city has provided all these years.
Venice is a city that capitalized on its geography and developed canals so the city could grow despite being so close to sea level. Now that sea levels are rising, Venice is in trouble because its survival is dependent on the water levels, as they become out of control Venice will not be able to withstand the change. There are similar circumstances like in the Maldives where global warming and rising sea levels will put entire countries under water.
As you mentioned in class, we are living on constantly moving land features. In the case of Venice, the water is moving in on the city so it is actually sinking and has been for quite some time. What is new to the equation is that it might be sinking “five times more than” originally “calculated or “7.8 inches every hundred years.” I say might be because there are others who quibble about this new find, saying it is inaccurate. Also, there is a damn project in the works to try and combat the sinking. While I am happy that the city is working on slowing the process, I am curious to know what their solution is going to be when the city finally does go under. As I was reading this all I could think of was saving all the rich art and history that this Italian city is famous for. In some ways it is great that the city knows ahead of time that it is sinking because they have time to plan a way to save the important aspects of the city. On another hand though, the city is so below sea level that a natural disaster could cause far more damage than anyone could have foreseen. I just hope that doesn’t happen anytime soon because Venice is definitely on my bucket list.