Governing water and environment in times of climate change: the case of the Venice lagoon

Abstract

Climate change is an additional challenge that coastal regions have to face nowadays. To address old and new problems, institutional reforms are increasingly required. This research focuses on a case study, namely the Venice lagoon. The objective is to explore institutional arrangements for water and environmental management that would improve effectiveness in the governance of the Venice lagoon under conditions of climate change. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis of scientific literature, archive data and interviews is conducted in three separated studies. In addition to that, knowledge about the functioning of the formal and informal institutional system at work in the studied area was gained during the past six years working in the field of the safeguarding of Venice and was helpful to perform the analysis and interpreting the findings. The first study reflects on the ability of the non-structural and structural measures for flood protection in Venice to anticipate expected sea-level rise induced by climate change. Then, the second study looks into the institutions for water and environmental management to assess whether they support adaptive capacity of society to climate change. This analysis is done in comparison with another coastal region, the Dutch Wadden Sea with the aim of searching for lessons to be learnt. Finally, the level of implementation of the adaptive co-management as normative framework for effective governance and its implication in terms of policy learning are explored in the third study. The findings of this research suggest that decades of studies funded by the Special Law for Venice generated technical and scientific knowledge and allowed building infrastructure that could make Venice one of the foremost regions adapting to climate change and an example for other coastal regions to learn. This provided that the governance structure allows for timely completion of all infrastructures as well as adequate management and maintenance by supplying adequate funding and reforming institutions. Reforming the current Special Law for Venice offers an opportunity to develop a novel governance regime with all relevant parties. Taking a climate change perspective in developing the new regime would then ensure long term protection from climate related risks. Recommendations include a possible path and a number of institutions to improve effectiveness in the governance of the Venice lagoon.

La ricerca esplora strumenti di governo ambientale per migliorare l’efficacia della governance della laguna di Venezia in presenza di cambiamenti climatici. La ricerca inizialmente riflette sulla capacità di difesa dall’innalzamento del livello del mare delle misure di protezione dalle acque alte. Poi, valuta la capacità di adattamento al cambiamento climatico delle politiche per il governo dell’ambiente lagunare e lo fa comparando Venezia e il Wadden Sea in Olanda. Infine, valuta l’attuazione dell’adaptive co-management a Venezia quale strumento di efficace governance ambientale. L’analisi evidenzia come l’alto livello di conoscenze tecniche e scientifiche e le infrastrutture in corso di realizzazione collochino Venezia tra le zone costiere che meglio possono adattarsi al cambiamento climatico. Deve però essere assicurato un regolare flusso di risorse e strumenti di governo per il completamento delle infrastrutture, la gestione e la manutenzione delle opere di salvaguardia e della città. La riforma della Legge Speciale per Venezia offre l’opportunità di disegnare una nuova governance lagunare capace di rispondere a queste esigenze. Le raccomandazioni di questa ricerca offrono un possibile percorso per avviare la riforma e alcune ipotesi di strumenti per una più efficace governance della laguna di Venezia.