Venice, 10 April – A new study has found that Venice’s 117 islands are sinking deeper into the lagoon on average of one to two millimeters each year. A study from the electronic Journal of Geochemistry, Geophysics and Geosystems (G³) found that not only is Venice sinking, its foundations are tilting slightly eastward. The article found these occurances can be attributed to both natural and man made factors which include a rising sea floor, shifting of tectonic plates and decades of pumping groundwater a practice which has now ceased.
In response to the threat of high-water a series of mobile flood barriers designed to protect the lagoon and Venice from the Adriatic sea is expected to be completed in 2014.