The ‘Fortress City’ Dilemma: Why Venice’s Most Protective Plan May Erase Its Soul

If nothing radical is done, rising sea levels could swallow Venice by the 2070s. The city’s centuries‑old lagoon, once a natural bulwark, is now the Achilles’ heel as climate‑driven sea‑level rise accelerates. Over the past 130 years the average water level has climbed 32 cm, and the most extreme tidal floods have become markedly more frequent.

In response, the MOSE project—78 electromechanical tidal barriers costing at least $8 billion, inaugurated in 2020 and engineered for a centennial lifespan—has been operating far beyond its intended frequency. Yet Professor Piero Lionello, a Venetian IPCC climatologist, cautions that under the worst‑case sea‑level scenario the system may remain functional for only about 30 years.

Faced with the prospect that MOSE could become obsolete, Lionello and his colleagues have delineated four strategic pathways: (1) lifting the city by up to 30 cm; (2) encircling the historic core with a permanent ring wall—the so‑called ‘fortress city’; (3) sealing the lagoon from the Adriatic by erecting gigantic levees; and (4) dismantling and relocating vulnerable structures to higher ground on the mainland.

Lionello warns that the ‘fortress city’ option would be ‘really devastating’, because it would irrevocably sever the intimate, historic symbiosis between Venice and its lagoon, transforming a living urban fabric into an isolated citadel.

Each alternative entails stark trade‑offs: lifting the city preserves the water‑edge experience but may prove insufficient against metre‑scale rises; a sealed lagoon would create a static lake, jeopardising marine biodiversity and the port’s economic viability; relocation safeguards monuments yet sacrifices the city’s cultural continuity; and the ring wall, while offering robust protection, risks the very identity that renders Venice a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Consequently, the debate underscores that engineering solutions cannot be evaluated in isolation from heritage, ecology, and economy; the most protective measure may paradoxically erase the essence that makes Venice unique.

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