Cambridge University
Coastal Research Unit
http://ccru.geog.cam.ac.uk
http://ccru.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/venice2003/
CCRU carries out fundamental research on coastal,
estuarine and near-shore processes, landforms and
ecosystems; environmental monitoring in the coastal
zone, and research consultancies for both governmental
and non-governmental agencies. It works in both
temperate and tropical environments.
Flooding and Environmental
Challenges for Venice and its Lagoon:
State of Knowledge - ISBN
13: 9780521840460
edited by Caroline Fletcher and Tom Spencer and
published by Cambridge University Press.
To order please click
here.
Agenzia Regionale per
la Prevenzione e Protezione Ambientale del Veneto
Prevention and Environmental Protection
www.arpa.veneto.it
The Veneto Regional Agency for Environmental Protection
is essentially the technical branch of the regional
administration. Its tasks can be summarised as:
*Environmental protection and monitoring;
*Weather forecasting, monitoring and statistical
elaborations;
*Organisation and management of the regional information
system for
environmental monitoring and environment related
epidemiology;
*Environmental education and information services;
*Technical and scientific services for environmental
impact assessments
and evaluation of environmental damage.
Agenzia per la protezione
dell’ambiente e per I servizi tecnici (APAT)
–
National agency for environmental protection and
technical services
www.apatvenezia.it
The Hydrographic Office has been operating in the
Lagoon since 1907 within Magistrato alle Acque but
recently changed to be run from central government.
It manages a network of 52 tide gauge stations for
the systematic measurement of tide level and related
parameters, such as wind direction and wind speed,
atmospheric pressure, precipitation, and wave-height.
Consorzio per la gestione
del Centro di Coordinamento delle Attivita di Ricerca
inerenti il Sistema Lagunare di Venezia (CORILA)
– Consortium for Coordination of Research
Activities Concerning the Venice Lagoon System
www.corila.it
CORILA is an association of Ca’Foscari University
and the University Institute of Architecture of
Venice, the University of Padua and Italy’s
National Research Council. A non-profit organisation,
it is overseen by the Ministry of Education, Universities
and Research (MIUR). It was founded in 1999 to coordinate
and manage research on the Venice Lagoon and thereby
provide decision support information to policy makers
and public administrations dealing with Venice.
Activities are organised within the framework of
three-year research programmes, which in turn are
divided into thematic areas and research lines.
The principal thematic areas are: economics, architecture
and cultural heritage; environmental processes;
data management and dissemination. The first research
programme (2000-2003) cost approximately Euro10.8
million of which nearly 60 per cent was funded by
the Special Law via the Ministry for Research. Co-financing
was provided by other administrations as well as
the research departments and other partners themselves.
The second research programme (2004-2007) has just
under Euro 6 million from the Special Law plus co-financing.
Accordingly, CORILA facilitates the acquisition
of knowledge and information on the physical system,
territorial, environmental, economic and social
aspects of the lagoon and lagoon settlements; processes
the manages this information in an integrated framework;
carries out interdisciplinary scientific research
projects pertinent to the problems of the Venice
Lagoon; facilitates interaction with the international
scientific community. The four partners of CORILA
have naturally been active participants in research
on the Venice lagoon system and the city itself
since the earliest times.
Centro Previsioni e Segnalazioni
mare – Tidal Forrecasting and Early Warning
Centre
www.comune.venezia.it/maree
Founded in 1980, this organ within the Venice Municipality
is responsible for the study and forecasting of
storm surge events and alerting the city in case
of flood events. Observation of sea level and meteorological
parameters is carried out through a monitoring network
(11 stations), that gives a real-time view of marine
and weather conditions in the Venice lagoon and
along the Adriatic coast. All stations measure sea
level and some also collect meteorological parameters;
air pressure, humidity, wind velocity and direction,
waves and air temperature.
Consiglio Nazionale elle
Ricerche (CNR) – National Research Council
www.cnr.it
The Italian National Research Council is a high
profile public organisation in the field of scientific
and technological research. Founded in 1923, it
is composed of dozens of separate institutes, each
with a particular specialisation. In response to
the increasing worldwide concern for the survival
of Venice, CNR established the Institute for the
study of the Dynamics of Large Masses in 1969, now
incorporated within the Marine Sciences Institute
(ISMAR). Created first as a laboratory, it has spread
from basic research in oceanography and geology
to applied research. The other Venice-based branch
of CNR-ISMAR is the Institute for Marine Biology,
established in 1946 as the national Centre of Talassographic
Studies, which focuses on pure and applied biological
oceanography, marine and lagoon biology.
Consorzio per la Ricerca
e la Formasione (COSES) – Consortium for Research
and Training
www.provincia.venezia.it/coses/
COSES was established in 1967 by the municipal and
provincial adinistrations to carry out analyses,
studies and projects to support public sector activities
– essentially via market research, data collection
and statistical analyses concerning the urban and
regional economy, building sector and housing, commercial
distribution, tourism, culture, teaching and education,
immigration, demographics, transport (especially
water) and urban planning.
Consorzio Venezia Nuovo
S. Marco 2803
30124 Venice
Tel +39 (0)41 529 3594
Fax +39 (0)41 5205119
The Consorzio Venezia Nuovo is a body funded
by the Ministero dei Lavori Pubblici and the Magistrato
all Acque di Venezia, set up for the protection
of Venice and its lagoon, in implementation of Law
798/84. This law gives the government responsibility
for: the hydrological restructuring of the lagoon;
the reversal of the degeneration of the lagoon and
the elimination of the causes of this degeneration;
the lowering of tide levels in the lagoon; the defence
of the inhabited areas of the lagoon (through local
intervention) and the protection of these areas
from the effects of exceptionally high tides, possibly
by means of mobile dykes situated at the harbour
entrances.
The Consorzio Venezia Nuovo consists of a group
of national and local construction companies formed
to carry out studies, experiments and the planning
and implementation of work; because of the way it
is constituted it is able to plan, organise and
manage operations from start to finish, throughout
all the different stages. In order to carry out
its activities it has access to advice from national
and international scientific bodies, and the most
prestigious universities in Italy and abroad.
The Information Service is a branch of the Magistrato
alle Acque-Consorzio Venezia Nuova whose task it
is to organise all information and studies that
might be useful for the management of the ecosystem
of the lagoon. It is one of Italy's most advanced
centres for the application of information technology
to land management. The service is arranged in three
sections: libraries, data banks and IT support services.
To date, more than 20,000 documents have been catalogued
by the libraries, and more than 300,000 objects
listed in the data bank. The data thus collected
is used by the IT support systems to facilitate
the decision-making process.
The Data, Materials and Documents section of the
web-site is entirely devoted to the description
of the documents available via the information service,
which has a thriving production of original territorial
maps, mathematical models, models of levels of pollution,
and of co- ordination of the various studies, monitoring
services, projects and management plans for future
protection schemes.
The Information Service uses working methods, criteria
and procedures which are valid for specific protection
operations and for a variety of other operations
in the same area. The Servizio Informativo provides
constant support to other organisations, including
the Regione del Veneto, the Comune and the Provincia
di Venezia.
The data bank carried statistics on measurements
(physical, chemical, socio-economic) supplied by
geographical studies which use graphic cartography
expressed in dots, lines and areas. The data bank
carries a combination of measurement data (alphanumerical)
and graphic data (vectorial) in a comprehensible
logical structure consisting of data and programmes,
usually known as GIS (Geographical Information System).
The data bank contains data on the territory collated
from documents. The GIS is an information system
whereby the territory is viewed as a collection
of more than 300,000 different objects collated
via more than one million identifying attributes
(regarding land, water, the lagoon, the basin, the
sea, the administrative areas, population figures,
hydrographic networks and basins, fisheries, the
canal system, islands, bathometry, roads and railways,
monitoring stations, land structure, hydrological
groups, land use, land registry, competencies of
the magistrature with regard to land and land reclamation
consortia, distribution of phanerogams and areas
where macro-algae flourish, territorial transformations
etc), and territorial parameters by two billion
information elementals. The data bank provides a
general outline of the geography of the territory,
with data designed for generalised automatic use.
The data covers: the lagoon in all its morphological,
hydraulic-ecological and socio-economic aspects;
the basin as a factor in pollution and the Upper
Adriatic sea, whose tides govern the level of the
lagoon.
In the GIS, the geographical data is linked (in
the IT sense) to corresponding alphanumerical data.
For example, each area representing one territory
of the ecosystem is linked to the relevant information
on surface measurement, the name of the place it
represents, the number of inhabitants resident in
the Comune, etc.
The combination of measurement data and graphic
data defines a territorial unit. The loading and
accessing of data in the data bank is made possible
through three main programmes: Microstation,, MGE
(Modular GIS Environment) and Dynamo (Dynamic Analyst),
produced by Intergraph and based on object logic.
These programmes permit access to a database consisting
of graphic and alphanumerical data, or combinations
of the two. Access is possible via the application
of traditional comparison operators (bigger, equal,
included etc) to the alphanumerical data, and contextually
with the operators of the graphic elements (and,
or, not), using topological relations (of belonging,
exclusion, distance, adjacency etc) existing between
the graphic elements. The data base is thus completely
accessible, and is also integrated into the same
geographical space (Gauss-Boaga, fuso EST).
These programmes constitute the Territorial Information
System, one of the most advanced of the GIS systems
currently available. The data bank is constituted
through the definition of geographical and territorial
entities, which contribute in full or in part to
the construction of the data base of the data bank.
Insula SpA
www.insula.it
Founded in 1997 by Venice Town Council (52 percent
share) together with Vesta (waste management). Enel.Hydro
(electricity), Italgas (gas) and Telecom Italia
(telephones), Insula’s mission concerns urban
maintenance and, more precisely, measures such as
clearing canals of accumulated silt, restoration
of canal walls, foundations and facades of buildings
lining canals, restoring bridges, rationalisation
of urban subsoil (utility lines and sewer system),
maintenance and renovation of paving, raising of
footpaths above the level of medium-high tides (local
protection). Project integration and works coordination
(all parties involved in the operations work side
by side, not least the public utilities, who are
Insula’s partners) is therefore essential
to this complicated process to minimise inconvenience,
while also boosting the efficiency, in terms of
economies of scale in such a delicate urban environment.
Istituto Veneto di Scienze
Lettere ed Arti
www.istitutoveneto.it
The Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti
was founded by Napoleon Bonaparte ‘to collect
discoveries, and to perfect the arts and sciences’.
Its current mission is to increase, promulgate and
safeguard the sciences, literature and arts, bringing
together outstanding figures from the world of scholarship.
The Institute also supports special research projects
that concern Venice and the Veneto, and which are
addressed at the international community. Together
with various universities and the National Research
Council, it has also set up specialised centres
for research into environmental questions, into
philological and literary aspects of the language
of Veneto and into Hydrology, Meteorology and Climatology.
It runs a programme to integrate and share environmental
data among all the major institutions and research
bodies.
Universita Ca’Foscari
di Venezia
www.unive.it
With four faculties and 19 departments, the University
dates back to the late 19th Century and its students
account for a significant proportion of the local
population. It covers many areas of chemistry and
environmental sciences; in the area of economics
it carries out specific environmental economic studies;
in the area of mathematics and IT it has developed
and has access to models and data management instruments;
significant contributions are also made in the field
of law.
Universita IUAV di Venezia
– IUAV
Venice University
www.iuav.it
Founded in 1926 it is an international reference
point for architecture, history, design, and restoration
as well as for town and land use planning. It also
has laboratories for construction science and analysis
of ancient materials. There are about 8,000 students
enrolled, 209 tenured professors and 240 contract
professors plus support and technical personnel.
Universita degli Studi
di Padova –
Padua University
www.unipd.it
Founded in 1222, it was the first university in
the world to award a degree to a woman, Elena Lucrezia
Cornaro Piscopia, in 1678 (in philosophy). It has
13 faculties and 62 departments and is a world leader
in hydraulic engineering, biology, agricultural
sciences, chemistry, mathematics and many other
branches of science – not to mention centuries
of tradition in law and medicine – matched
by first-class facilities and instrumentation.
UNESCO Office Venice
– Regional Bureau for Science in Europe
www.unesco.org
Following the disastrous floods of 1966 in Venice
and Florence and the Italian Government’s
invitation for UNESCO to contribute, the Liaison
Office for the Safeguarding of Venice was established
in 1973 on the occasion of the UNESCO International
Campaign for the Safeguarding of Venice. In 1988
the UNESCO Scientific Co-operation Bureau for Europe
(SC/BSE) was relocated from Paris to Venice and
renamed as Regional Office for Science and Technology
for Europe (ROSTE). In 2002, UNESCO established
a single office in Venice with the mandate to achieve
UNESCO’s and Member States’ goals in
the fields of science and culture. The UNESCO Office
Venice actively promotes, sponsors and convenes
international scientific and cultural events in
Europe and in the Mediterranean region. A unifying
theme for UNESCO is its contributing to peace and
human development in an era of globalisation, through
education, the sciences, culture and communication.
Hadley Centre for Climate
Prediction and Research
www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre
The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
is part of the Met Office and provides a focus for
the scientific issues associated with climate change.
