While there are still those who wonder about how to “defend” the landscape from the advance of the plants needed to produce renewable energy, the climate crisis is eating away – through rising sea levels – 80% of the Veneto lagoon landscape.
This is what emerges from a new study conducted by the National Research Council (Cnr), according to which the rise in sea level and the progressive lowering of the land are seriously threatening the diversity of low-lying coasts subject to the action of the tides.
«We predict that by 2050 the lagoon morphologies, currently located between 25 and 50 cm above sea level, will reduce by 16 km², while those that are currently between 0 and 25 cm will reduce by 18 km². This loss of morphological heterogeneity will have a negative impact on the precious ecological benefits that the lagoon environment provides”, explains Luigi Tosi, research director of the Cnr-Igg of Padua.
In other words, by 2050, 80% of lagoon landforms will be classified as moderately to extremely vulnerable, with a doubling of the affected areas compared to the 1990s.
The vulnerability of the Venice lagoon, exposed both to the rise in sea level and to the simultaneous lowering of the ground caused by the sinking of the land, thus puts at risk the fragile natural structures of the lagoon landscape, fundamental for the biodiversity and ecological stability of the lagoon.
«So far the natural structures of the lagoon have shown a certain ability to adapt to the rise in sea level – continues Tosi – However, with the continuous acceleration of this phenomenon and the lack of new sediments, the lagoon system will be put to the test . The mobile barriers of the Mose, on the one hand, protect the historic center from exceptional tides, on the other, they reduce the supply of sediment to the emerged areas such as the salt marshes. Without new sediments, these areas will not be able to grow in height and risk disappearing.”
As Cristina Da Lio, Cnr-Igg researcher adds, already today «the analysis has highlighted a worrying situation of vulnerability, with direct consequences on the ecosystem services offered. Among the most obvious risks are the loss of the important CO2 absorption mechanism, the threat to the life cycles of lagoon species and the danger of an overload of nutrients harmful to the balance of the ecosystem.”
But it is not “only” the natural ecosystem that is at risk: an international study published earlier this year documents that the rise in sea levels driven by the ongoing climate crisis is advancing faster than we thought, with an expected average figure of +1 meter by the end of the century.
«In Italy alone, we discovered that there are regions that could lose almost 21% of their GDP due to sea level rise by 2100, while other regions could gain around 2.3%», explains the co -author of the study Ignasi Cortés Arbués.
More specifically, Veneto is the European region most exposed to economic losses linked to rising sea levels, which could cut the area’s GDP by 20.84% by the end of the century; followed by the Polish region Zachodniopomorskie (-12.1% of GDP), while to close the podium of economic losses the study returns to Italy with Emilia-Romagna (-10.16% of GDP).
Among the other Italian regions most exposed to risk are Friuli Venezia Giulia, Tuscany and Marche; Basilicata (+2.36%), Calabria (+2.21%), Sardinia (+1.52%), Puglia (+1.36%) and Sicily (+1.21%).
The authors of the study propose that this could be due to the transfer of production from the flooded coastal regions to inland regions, or in any case less exposed to the phenomenon.
