Learning from Hydraulic Venice Landscape. Adaptive Strategies and Resilience

Abstract

The case of Venice and its Lagoon is emblematic: during its long history, the city had to learn to adapt to a complex habitat characterized by a really delicate and precarious balance, first developing an empirical knowledge, then strengthening a science of hydraulics. First to make the space in the lagoon area habitable, then not miss the game’s history, Venice was forced to fight for centuries and finally subdued temporarily some forces of nature. Venice created a legal apparatus that could handle extremely complex water planning at various scales, sharpened the technical ingenuity, and founded itself on a strong common interest: the survival and preservation of the lagoon. The aim of the article is to propose a brief excursus about the ‘Venice and waters’ case study, with a problem-solving approach. This lesson about a balance between anthropic needs and landscape preservation could be a useful point of view to look at the future of our coastlines in a long-time frame and a resilience perspective.