Water is a life force in Venice, Italy—and not only because of the canals that crisscross through the city like streets. Venice was built on an archipelago in a lagoon. The city is separated from the Adriatic Sea only by narrow sandbanks. Three gaps in the sandbanks allow ships to enter and leave the city. Sounds idyllic, if you like to be around water. Now, though, the floods that occur during high tides are becoming more severe due to climate change. A new system of floodgates is designed to keep Venice relatively dry, but it may bring negative environmental consequences of its own. Flooding is a regular event in Venice. From October to March, when a combination of factors is at play, including the winds and the position of the moon, a very high tide called acqua alta pours water into the lower-lying parts of the city. But in recent years, climate change has made the flooding much worse. In November 2019, the city experienced its worst flooding in five decades. The interior of one of the most visited sights in Venice—a church called St. Mark's Basilica—flooded for only the sixth time in 1,200 years.

Mose aims to prevent such devastation in the future. "Mose" is the name for a system of 78 yellow floodgates that work like this: When not in use, the floodgates sit out of sight, at the bottom of the lagoon. Once activated, the gates are inflated with air, causing them to rise to the surface. From there, they seal off the lagoon's three inlets. This shields Venice from high tides, keeping homes, shops, cafes, and tourist areas safe and dry.

After passing a test run during the summer of 2020, Mose was put through its paces on October 3, when the city experienced the first acqua alta tide of the season. Without the barriers, city officials say, half the city's streets would have been under a foot and a half (0.46 meters) of water. With the walls in place? To residents' relief, the city remained fairly dry.

So, yes, Mose seems to work already—and construction on the system won't even be complete until December 2021. But to many, the day the finishing touches are added to Mose won't be a happy one. Environmental scientists, engineers, architects, and others point out that the system can cause serious damage to the lagoon's ecosystem. That's because the barriers close off the lagoon so that it no longer has an influx of water from the rest of the sea. This reduces the oxygen level in the lagoon. As climate change worsens, the barriers will have to be raised so often that the lagoon will have less and less natural free-flowing water exchange with the sea. Eventually, all organic life will die and the lagoon will become a swamp.

So, what would be a better solution to Venice's flooding woes, according to environmental scientists and others? They say the world needs to take immediate action to fix the problem at its source. That means implementing policies that address climate change.

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