Huntsville software maker helps keep aging Venice afloat
An Alabama software company is a key part in one of the most intricate engineering jobs on the planet: preventing the erosion of Venice, the Italian city built in the middle of a lagoon.
Huntsville-based Intergraph Corp. has been providing software to engineers on the project for about 15 years. Thursday, the company said its software is part of the most ambitious part of the effort to date.
To keep the waters of the Adriatic Sea from flooding Venice, located in northeastern Italy, engineers are installing 78 submerged, mobile dams at the three entrances to the lagoon in which sit the islands that make up Venice. When the Adriatic tide rises, the dams can be activated by inflating compressed air and expelling water, preventing Venice from flooding.
Intergraph mapping software will be used to interpret satellite and aerial photography important to the project. Intergraph is also providing software that turns the lagoon's environmental data and the condition of its roads, bridges and dams into understandable visual representations.
"Ultimately, we will solve Venice's water erosion problem," said Claudio Mingrino, Intergraph's top manager in Italy. "But there is the prediction that if nothing is done, we will lose Venice in 50 to 100 years."
Venice is built on an archipelago of 118 islands separated by canals used for most public transport. The buildings are secured by wood pilings sunk deep into the underwater soil. Most are more than 500 years old, but wood doesn't decay without oxygen. The problem is that water drilling for industrial development in the past 100 years has depleted the area's natural aquifer, causing the islands to sink.
It takes sophisticated, custom-written software to track, analyze and simplify all of the information affecting Venice's condition and reclamation, said Intergraph's Mingrino.
"The city is built on water," he said from his office in Rome. "Managing the infrastructure is very difficult."
About 100,000 people live in the historic city and the surrounding islands. Venice has been a honeymoon and vacation destination for generations and the location for hundreds of Hollywood films, including the 1979 James Bond picture "Moonraker."
Intergraph's software and its consultants are employed by governments and corporations worldwide for applications similar to what's going on in Venice. The company has 3,500 employees and about $600 million in annual sales. Shares rose 3.7 percent Thursday to $33.32. The stock has fallen 33 percent so far this year.
E-mail: rhubbard@bhamnews.com