The MOSE Flood Barriers Site Features

The three inlets

Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia -- the only openings between the Adriatic and the lagoon, and therefore the only places a barrier could go. The Lido inlet is split into two barriers either side of an artificial island.

The gates

Seventy-eight steel boxes, each around twenty metres wide, hinged to concrete caissons on the seabed. Their whole design principle is invisibility at rest.

The Malamocco lock

A navigation lock lets shipping reach the industrial port at Marghera while the barriers are raised -- the one part of the system that has to work continuously.

Punta Sabbioni

The most accessible vantage point on the works, and a normal stop on the Venice boat.