Venice, built upon mud islands in a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea, has long been one of the world's most endangered cities. In the 20th century, artesian wells that gradually extracted the aquifer beneath the city caused its elegant architecture to begin sinking, increasing the flood risk. The danger will be exacerbated even more by global warming. Osvaldo Canziani, deputy head of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told a reporter in April 2007 that over the next 30 years, rainfall in the northern Mediterranean will increase by 10 to 20 percent, raising the lagoon's height to unprecedented levels. "If things carry on like this, Venice is destined to disappear," Canziani predicted. The MOSE project is intended to forestall that calamity. Begun in 2003 by then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the project's name is an acronym that, in English, translates to "Experimental Electromechanical Module." In simpler terms, MOSE will consist of 79 hollow, hinged steel gates that usually will be filled with water and lie unseen on the ocean floor. In the event of a storm, the gates will be pumped full of air, so that they will rise up to form a protective seawall. MOSE has been plagued by controversy. Italy's Green Party, which is now part of current Prime Minister Romano Prodi's eight-party ruling coalition, has denounced it as "the biggest fiasco [in] this century," and Venetian geographer Paolo Pirazzoli has warned that it may not be high enough to protect against sea level increases. Nevertheless, about one-third of the $4 billion project has been constructed so far, with completion scheduled for 2011.
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