WASHINGTON: Though previous studies had found that Venice has stabilized, new measurements indicate that the historic city continues to slowly sink, and even to tilt slightly to the east.

Sinking & tilting: Venice slowly slipping into its watery grave

HERE Mar 22, 2012, 07.28AM IST

Researchers revealed that the city is subsiding on average of 2 mm per year. “Venice appears to be continuing to subside, at a rate of about 2 millimeters a year,” said Yehuda Bock, a research geodesist with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California, and the lead author of the new article on the city’s downward drift.

“It’s a small effect, but it’s important,” he added. Given that sea level is rising in the Venetian lagoon, also at 2mm per year, the slight subsidence doubles the rate at which the heights of surrounding waters are increasing relative to the elevation of the city, he noted. In the next 20 years, if Venice and its immediate surroundings subsided steadily at the current rate, researchers would expect the land to sink up to 3.2 inches in that period of time, relative to the sea. The patches of land in Venice’s lagoon (117 islands in all) are also sinking, they found.