Morphological modelling for construction phases of the Venice inlets

Period:	2004-2009
Location:	Venice, Italy
Client:	Technital

assignment/short description

The city of Venice covers 117 small islands in the marshy Venice Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea innortheast Italy. Venice and its buildings are threatened by flood tides pushing water in from the Adriaticseveral times per year. One of the safeguarding activities against the high waters in the VeniceLagoon is the defence system called MOSE.  

The MOSE system consists of a combination of various types of structures, enabling all three lagoon inlet channels to be temporarily closed to defend all inhabited centres of the Venice lagoon from exceptionally high waters. To temporarily close off the inlets, mobile barriers were designed in combination with local raising of quaysides. For each inlet a different structure was planned, adapted to the local geometry and compatible with the architectural and socio-economic structure of the surrounding area. Building such large structures in the inlets will affect the hydraulics and morphodynamics of the area.

The impact of the structures on the hydrodynamics and bed dynamics in and around the three inlets was studied in detail by Deltares. Numerical modeling was performed not only for the final situation but also for numerous phases during the construction activities in order to guide these works. Using the modelling results, the intermediate impact of the structures on the surrounding seabed could be considered in further detailing of the design of the structures and bed protection by the Client. The figure on the right shows the proposed structures for each of the Venice Inlets: Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia.

Brochure (PDF)