We analyse the impact of ship traffic in the vicinity of navigation channels in a wide shallow waterbody. The crucial hydrodynamic driver in this situation is the depression (Bernoulli) wake that may be transferred into a long-living solitary wave of depression over the shoals. The analysis considers navigation channels in the Venice Lagoon using a new large dataset of approximately 600 measured wake events associated to specific ships whose data are provided by the AIS system. Since the development of the modern industrial port and the opening of the Malamocco–Marghera channel in the late 1960s, growing pressure on the lagoon caused by ship traffic has raised concerns about its physical integrity and habitat survival. The transit of large vessels has been shown to have serious impacts on the shallow water areas adjacent to waterways. Depression wakes created by such vessels can reach significant dimensions (water level dropdown of up to 2.45 m at the channel margin), causing unusually large retreat rates of several sections of the shoreline and which may adversely affect the lagoon morphology. The wakes are analysed in relation to ship and morphological parameters. A formulation is proposed to predict wake amplitude on the basis of ship characteristics and motion.

An observation system integrating satellite images, in situ water parameters and hydrodynamic measurements was implemented in a tidal inlet of the Venice Lagoon (Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy). The experimental infrastructure was developed to autonomously investigate suspended sediment dynamics in the two channels of the Lido inlet in relation to the longshore currents in the littoral zone and the tidal circulation along the lagoon channel network. It provided time series of turbidity at the surface, water flow and acoustic backscatter, which was converted into turbidity along the vertical column during different tidal phases and meteo-marine conditions. Accurate turbidity maps were derived from Sentinel-2 (Copernicus) and Landsat 8 (NASA) satellites. Long-term in situ data from field surveys enabled the calibration and intercalibration of the instrumental setup and validation of satellite-derived products. Time series from the instrumental network were analyzed in order to evaluate the temporal variability of suspended sediment in relation to tidal phases and the different meteo-marine conditions. The integration of available datasets with satellite images also permitted the testing of the methodology for a 3-D reconstruction of the suspended sediment pattern in calm sea conditions, under the effect of the sole hydrodynamical forcing. Remotely sensed data provide a synoptic distribution of turbidity in the inlet area allowing the analysis of the surficial patterns of suspended sediment and the inferring of information on the transport processes at different spatial scales. In calm sea conditions, the results show that the transport is driven by tidal currents with a net seaward transport related to a larger export of materials from the northern basin of the Lagoon of Venice. During typical northeasterly storms, materials mobilized on the beaches and in the shoreface are transported into the inlet and distributed into the lagoon channel network, following the flood tidal currents and determining net import of materials. The multitude of information provided by this system can support research on aquatic science (i.e., numerical simulations) and address end-user community practices. The ecosystem management will also benefit operational purposes, such as the monitoring of morphological transformations, erosion processes and planning of coastal defense in the future scenarios of sea level rise. The developed approach will also help to understand how the regulation of the inlet flow introduced by the operation of the flood barriers will affect the fluxes of particles and, in the long term, the lagoon morphodynamics.

The coexistence of phytoplankton and macrophytes in the Lagoon of Venice (Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy) was investigated using in situ data collected monthly as part of International Long Term Ecosystem Research (LTER), together with satellite imagery for the period 1998–2017. The concentrations of chlorophyll a and hydrochemical parameters were measured in three areas of the lagoon, where the expansion of well-developed stands of submerged vegetation was observed by remote sensing. Our results suggest interaction between phytoplankton and macrophytes (macroalgae and seagrasses) in the last few years of the time series, evidenced by decreasing chlorophyll a concentrations in the vicinity of the macrophyte stands. The integration of LTER and remotely sensed data made it possible to evaluate the interaction of macrophytes and phytoplankton at the ecosystem scale for the first time in the Lagoon of Venice.

In the Venetian lagoon, the storm surge barriers (Mo.S.E. system) are crucial to prevent urban flooding during extreme stormy events. The inlet closures have some cascading effects on the hydrodynamics and sediment transports of this shallow tidal environment. The present study aims at investigating the effects of the Mo.S.E. closure on the wind-wave propagation inside the lagoon. In situ wave data were collected to establish a unique dataset of measurements recorded in front of San Marco square between July 2020 and December 2021, i.e., partially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ten storm events were analyzed in terms of significant wave heights and simultaneous wind characteristics. This dataset allowed for validating a spectral wave model (SWAN) applied to the whole lagoon. The results show that the floodgate closures, which induce an artificial reduction of water levels, influence significant wave heights H_S, which decrease on average by 22% compared to non-regulated conditions, but in the shallower areas (for example tidal flats and salt marshes), the predicted decrease is on average 48%. Consequently, the analysis suggests that the Mo.S.E. closures are expected to induce modifications in the wave overtopping, wave loads and lagoon morphodynamics.