As part of our work to better understand the critical parameters for successful recreation of salt marsh in the Venetian Lagoon, We are here Venice and the VITAL initiative, in partnership with Laguna B, have been authorised by the Provveditorato Interregionale per le Opere Pubbliche—the local agency of the Ministry for Infrastructure/Ecological Transition—to monitor two areas of new salt marsh in the southern Lagoon. 

The Port Authority is carrying out the work, using dredged materials sourced from the principal shipping channel. A research group led by Professor Pietro Teatini at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Università di Padova, has expressly designed instrumentation and a monitoring campaign to track both subsidence of the underlying lagoon bed and compaction of nourishment sediments, in response to the weight of the infill.

A GIS database is also being created regarding the recent history of the Lagoon as regards previous salt marsh reconstruction works, different methods and materials used, and current status. Some artificial salt marsh created years ago has very little vegetation and is vulnerable to erosion or already eroded whereas other areas that were filled in above the typical quota (relative to average water level) have been vegetated by plant species more typical of islands than intertidal zones.