The European project “Channeling the Green Deal for Venice”, that was conceived and developed by the North Adriatic Sea Port Authority – Ports of Venice and Chioggia – was presented to members of the European Parliament and EU officials in Brussels, at the headquarters of the Veneto Region. The presentation was participated by Ambassador Stefano Verrecchia, as the Deputy Permanent Representative to the European Union.
More specifically, the “Channeling the Green Deal for Venice” project, with a total value of 1.7 million euros and co-financed by Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), addresses the problem of the limited nautical accessibility to the ports of Venice and Chioggia by seeking scientific and operational solutions to increase operations in compliance with physical constraints, the hydrodynamic balance of the Venetian lagoon, local water traffic and the MoSE mobile dam system.
Indeed, these peculiarities have made new preparatory studies necessary, to the implementation of management and infrastructural interventions capable to improving navigation over the sign of sustainability along the Malamocco-Marghera canal and the surrounding areas – contributing to a wider decarbonisation of transport in wider terms. Channeling was carried out through an extremely innovative approach, which integrates for the first time hydrodynamic simulation and navigation models in real time. In this way, studies carried out have provided important technical-scientific elements, proving how throung some targeted interventions is possible to increase port operations and the safety of navigation, while obtaining a lower environmental impact of vessel traffic in the area.
“The sustainable development of the port system in the Veneto area is already possible; scientific research and technology allow to identify necessary balance between the development of the ports of Venice and Chioggia and the delicate lagoon environment” declares Fulvio Lino Di Blasio, as the President of the North Adriatic Sea Port Authority. “Channeling represents in this sense a paradigmatic project. The Port Authority has coordinated the working group, counting on some of the best national and European organizations in the field of scientific research. Thanks to the recursive method used, which involves the collection and the analysis of historical weather-marine data, analysis of the lagoon bed, hydrodynamic study and real-time simulations of the transit of ships, the operational and infrastructural solutions necessary to revitalize and riwild the central lagoon have been identified and they can also reduce the ordinary maintenance of the Malamocco-Marghera canal. Stopping the dispersion of sediments, protecting the sandbanks, implementing environmental sustainability: these are the goals we want to achieve in the near future. Thanks to the solutions that we have identified, we are already able to develop port activities by reducing maintenance interventions to the minimum level, and at the same time improving the lagoon environment also through the creation of salt marshes: thus welcoming a new season building up a sustainable port in Venice.”
Ambassador Stefano Verrecchia, Deputy Permanent Representative to the European Union comments: “These are projects fostering to improving nautical accessibility within the Venice lagoon, such a vulnerable ecosystem worthy of attention and specific solutions for a unique reality from an environmental point of view. Venice gets a test-bed to replicate the methodology of the study applicable to other ports, proposing infrastructural and operational solutions – MOSE is an example – which improve the environmental impact of naval traffic”
