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Venice without water

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Re: Venice without water

#81

Post by dredmorbius »

The view of the (very shallow) canals of Venice brings to mind the Erie Canal, which I've been reading up on.

The initial channel was 40 feet wide, but only 4 feet (1.2 meter) deep, with canal-boats having a draft of 3.5 feet -- leaving 6 inches of clearance between those and the canal bottom. Given the speed of travel -- about 3-5 mph (4.8 - 8 km/h) behind a horse or donkey tow -- bottoming out would like not have been disastrous, but would still have been at the very least, a nuisance.

Considering canals to alternatives, I also realised that one of these was that the surface was uniform, effectively flat, and immune to the hazards and treacheries of road-based travel, most especially mud, ruts, and wash-outs. A canal is the original self-healing substrate.

Even at 5 mph, the constant and smooth travel, as well as the size of the boat relative to the tow (1-3 horses, boats of up to 78 ft (24 meter) in length), travel time was cut in half and costs by an order of magnitude. From a note on the Wikpedia entry:

"Using Clark's Works of Man figures, a mule can draw 60,000 lbs but carry only 250 lbs, which need men to load and unload daily, have a need to carry grain as well (parasitic weight), and for same tonnages, required far more men as a labor force, drastically increasing running costs. A 95% reduction is probably conservative, 250#/30t is 0.4% the expenses, so reduction to 5% costs still indicates someone is taking a lot of profits."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Canal

The Erie Canal was eventually enlarged. But in its day, the initial configuration was an absolute revolution in transport for the United States.

Re: Venice without water

#82

Post by dredmorbius »

ultimoo wrote: post #32

I had no idea the canals were this shallow! For some reason I thought they were at least 10 meters or so deep.

"You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it."

Miller's Law (Martin's Extension)

As I've just commented: a surprisingly small depth of water can make possible a tremendous amount of transport. And the depth of a body (or channel) is very hard to tell from its surface.

Re: Venice without water

#83

Post by perilunar »

ultimoo wrote: post #32

I had no idea the canals were this shallow! For some reason I thought they were at least 10 meters or so deep.

Makes you wonder why they bother rowing the gondolas — punting with a pole would work just as well. I suppose they need to row in the deeper main canal.

Re: Venice without water

#84

Post by CydeWeys »

dredmorbius wrote: post #80
CydeWeys wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's such a popular tourist spot, no one goes there anymore." (Apologies to Yogi Berra.) Tourism-based economies can't fail from becoming too profitable. If prices are high, it's only because people are still willing to pay them. It's market forces in action.

Just giving that a cursory thinking through, I can see several ways in which that might fail. "Real-estate-based economies can't fail from becoming too profitable. If prices and rents are high, it's only because people are still willing to pay them. It's market forces in action." Or, perhaps, it's rents-extraction, money-laundering, signs of even worse collapse elsewhere, and killing the underlying fundamentals of th…

Niagara Falls is doing just fine though? Can you think of examples of tourism destinations that failed because too many people went there? It seems tautologically impossible to me. Yes, the character of them may change, and they may go more upmarket, but I can't see them completely collapsing from getting too successful.

The much more worn path is tourism spots failing from lack of visitors. You see that at the older Las Vegas casinos that can't compete with the latest and greatest mega-resorts, for example.

Re: Venice without water

#87

Post by dang »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #21
yeukhon wrote: post #11

This is interesting. For years, scientists warn about Venice will eventually go underwater as sea level continues to rise.

I only came to this comment thread to find the climate change denier. I was not disappointed.

Please don't react to it by making the thread even worse.

Re: Venice without water

#88

Post by endisukaj »

slm_HN wrote: post #55
sandworm101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-adaptation thing is recent. Dig down and you will find every building today stands atop the rubble of many previous that were nocked down once they got too expensive to maintain. The city constantly sinks and readily adapted to this. Some might say that need to constantly adapt made venice great. But at some point in the 1950s/60s the "greatest generation" decided to protect the old at all costs. Nothing is e…

The "greatest generation" name applies to Americans not Italians. They earned that title by winning World War II, rebuilding Japan and Germany, and creating the richest society in the history of the world. That same generation of Italians embraced fascism, followed Mussolini, allied with Hitler and got their ass kicked in World War II.

They also sold half of Europe to the Soviets, started a war in Vietnam, and nuked Japan.

See? Goes both ways.

Re: Venice without water

#89

Post by kaybe »

simonraikallen wrote: post #64

There is so much talk these days of "rising sea levels" so its kind of ironic to see the opposite. But I guess changes in weather causes both extremes.

No, this is not expected. Sea level rise occurs because there is physically more water in the sea (both by weight and thermal expansion). Storms and wind can alter local sea level as well, as eg el Nino does in the Pacific, but not in Mediterranean dimensions.

Re: Venice without water

#90

Post by dredmorbius »

CydeWeys wrote: post #84
dredmorbius wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just giving that a cursory thinking through, I can see several ways in which that might fail. "Real-estate-based economies can't fail from becoming too profitable. If prices and rents are high, it's only because people are still willing to pay them. It's market forces in action." Or, perhaps, it's rents-extraction, money-laundering, signs of even worse collapse elsewhere, and killing the underlying fundamentals of th…

Niagara Falls is doing just fine though? Can you think of examples of tourism destinations that failed because too many people went there? It seems tautologically impossible to me. Yes, the character of them may change, and they may go more upmarket, but I can't see them completely collapsing from getting too successful. The much more worn path is tourism spots failing from lack of visitors. You see that at the older…

I asked because examples didn't immediately occur to me, though this isn't a topic with which I'm particularly conversant.

Acapulco, Mexico, is a former tourist mecca that's been transformed, though, as with a few other examples I can think of, largely through violence (here: drugs wars).

Niagra Falls remains a tourist destination, but not of a scope that it once was. There are several other destinations I could think of, also largely East Coast U.S., which once commanded a high volume of traffic but which are no longer premier destinations.

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