Book Review: Dominic Standish, Venice in Environmental Peril:Myth and Reality

Abstract

Book Review: Dominic Standish, Venice in Environmental Peril: Myth and Reality. Forward by John Elgin. University Press of America, Inc. 2012. ISBN: 9780761856641 (Paperback). 306 Pages. $38.99.[Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http.V/www. transformativestudies, ors O2014 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]On 4 November 1966 a confluence of severe weather - high tides, winds, heavy rains swelling the rivers and canals - led Venice to experience traumatic floods, the worst to hit the city in the twentieth century. In some parts of the city water levels rose to 194 centimetres above mean sea levels, while the Doge's Palace on St. Mark's Square drowned under a meter and a half of sea water. Between three and 5000 Venetians were left homeless as shops and businesses were ruined and homes left uninhabitable. Electricity was knocked out for over a week. Unsurprisingly for a city with as many cultural treasures as Venice, many millions of dollars of damage was done to artworks and historic buildings. Although there were no flood-related deaths in Venice's historical centre, two people died of heart attacks during the flood in Chioggia, a town that sits a few miles south of the city on an island at the mouth of the Lagoon of Venice. Alleyways were left awash with rubbish, dead pigeons, and drowned rats.Destructive and traumatic as the floods of November 1966 undoubtedly were, it is surely no great surprise that Venice would be at risk of flooding. It is with good reason that Venice has at different times been known as the 'City of Water,' the 'Floating City,' 'City of Bridges,' or 'City of Canals.' Venice is composed of 117 islands separated by canals and rivers and linked by bridges, situated in a 56 by 11 kilometre tidal lagoon on the north western shores of the Adriatic Sea. It is thus subject to flooding at high tides and has, throughout the centuries, suffered serious and devastating floods.The events of 1966 were the worst floods in the 20th century, though they were matched in their severity by the more recent floods of 2008. At the foundation of Dominic Standish's argument in Venice in Environmental Peril: Myth and Reality, is the recognition that the impact of earlier historical floods was far greater on the lives of Venetians:Less developed infrastructure and transport, the absence of sea walls, and weaker building structures and defences, meant that Venetian communities were often devastated by flooding. They suffered much more from flooding than Venetians did in 1966 or today. (p9)This straightforward, but important, insight seems at odds with the narrative that has developed in the aftermath of the 1966 floods in which the city has come to be understood to exist on the edge of a precipice. As Standish summarises in his introduction: today's discussion of Venice is pervaded by fear of the sea, a preoccupation with environmental threats; and claims about sinking, rising sea levels, and the destructive impact of tourism, present Venice as a city in peril. (p2)It is this narrative of Venice in Peril that Standish seeks to explain and critique. At one level, his book develops a straightforward, but in the contemporary climate, perhaps unfashionable, counterargument to the different strands of environmentalist preoccupations that, Standish argues, have lead to a failure to properly develop and modernize Venice since the floods of 1966. The most significant example of this is the failure to realise the proposals set out in Project MOSE for a system of 78 mobile flood damns that could control, and where necessary, help to stem water flow into the three main inlets to the Venetian lagoon, thus significantly limiting high tidal flooding. A feasibility study first set this proposal out in 1971, five years after the traumatic floods; legislation was passed to begin the construction project in 1973, but to this day, 40 years later, the project has not been completed. …