Injections Could Lift Venice 12 Inches, Study Suggests

Injecting billions of gallons of seawater could "inflate" porous sediments under the canal-crossed city, causing the Italian city to rise by as much as a foot (about 30 centimeters), scientists say.
Known to Venetians as the acqua alta, or "high water," flooding driven by high tides submerges the lowest 14 percent of the Italian destination four times a year, on average.And it's only getting worse.
Under the plan, a dozen wells surrounding Venice in a six-mile (ten-kilometer) circle would pump water into the ground over a ten-year period—nearly 40 billion gallons in all (150 billion liters).
"When you inject water, you cause an expansion of the injected formations," said Gambolati, a hydrologist at the University of Padua in Italy.
"If land is settling, then you offset the settlement and sinking stops. [Once] land is stable, you induce an uplift."