Will Venice survive? Lecture by Prof. Rinaldo

In 2008, Professor Andrea Rinaldo founded the world's first ecohydrology laboratory at the ENAC Faculty of EPFL. In 2023, he was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize, considered the most prestigious in the field of hydrology.

The ENAC Faculty has the great honor of celebrating its laureate and invites you to attend his lecture and the aperitif dinner that will follow:

7 September 2023
17:15 - 18:30
Rolex Learning Center - Forum
EPFL - Lausanne

WILL VENICE SURVIVE?
Built and natural environments in a changing world

Venice’s fate is still a case study of paramount importance today. On the one hand, the intrinsic relevance of the at-risk cultural heritage inevitably commands global attention. On the other, the quantitative evaluation of the ecosystem services jeopardized by the effects of climate change proves complex especially in contexts stratified by history. The very notion of sustainability, which hinges on the social worth of the entire set of capital assets of the Venetian economy (including the current natural capital), needs to face here a long history of change and must not assume the biosphere to be external to the human economy. The lack of a desirable, characteristic reference state of the environment weighs in: lagoons are metastable tidal landforms where a benchmark natural capital does not exist because the Venetian environment has been radically changed through the centuries to suit shifting models of the city’s social and economic welfare long gone by now. However, sea-level regressions and transgressions have always shaped the cycles of the fortune of coastal areas, and it is only during the Anthropocene we fancied to resist such strong evolutionary forces. Should we simply accept the notion that in the long run Venice will become just a layer of a sedimentary deposit? Should we instead unleash today’s technological options in engineering the Earth and its risks?  Acute problems have been tackled in the past, yet an idyllic golden age when nature was in equilibrium with man never existed, and the built and the natural environments we see today are the byproduct of decisive transformations imposed by man. 

My take is: within this century, owing to the effects of climate change, Venice and its lagoon cannot be the ones we see now. Soon sea-level rise will require a plan in place that will imply a radical rethinking of its built and natural environments: the sea-lagoon interfaces, the lagoon domain, the social and economic activities within the greater Venice area, and the very survival of the texture of the city. The time to set in motion a proper discourse about the possible scenarios -- possibly by a broad international consultation -- is now given Venice’s track record in acting. These decades extend beyond the lifetime of most of us, so we must act without self-interest on behalf of future generations. The science community should thus act affirmatively in their sentinel responsibility to alert the society, possibly making the case of Venice the template for the global rethinking of how to conserve cultural heritage, while fostering sustainable development, at a time when rapidly changing environmental conditions no longer allow for the mere conservation through maintenance.


Program
17h15: 
Welcome & Introduction

• Prof. Claudia R. Binder, ENAC Dean
• EPFL Direction

• Prof. Andrea Rinaldo

• Moderation: Prof. Claudia R. Binder