Scope of work was the assessment of the environmental sustainability of the “Venice Lagoon System”, according to the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) and other relevant EU Directives and policies, including in particular: Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive, Water Framework Directive, Birds and Habitats Directives, EU Biodiversity Strategy. The study assessed the sustainability of present and future management strategies and safeguarding activities of Venice lagoon in relations to main economic and environmental drivers, including among the others climate change and sea level rise. The study was carried out in cooperation with the Sustainability Solutions Institute (SSI) of the University of California, San Diego. SSI coordinated an international expert panel that contributed to the study. Services provided by Thetis included: (i) analysis of EU environmental directives and policies relevant for the study objective; (ii) analysis of key environmental problems of Venice lagoon and related information gap; (iii) analysis of sustainable scenarios for the Venice lagoon system; (iv) assessment of management practices and safeguarding interventions; (v) identification of integrative strategies and measures to be implemented; (vi) provision of state-of–the art knowledge to develop an adaptive sustainable management plan for the Venice lagoon system.
