Venice is an iconic place and a paradigm of huge historical and cultural values at risk. The frequency of the flooding of the city centre has dramatically increased in recent decades, and this threat is expected to continue to grow – and even accelerate – through this century. This special issue is a collection of three review articles addressing different and complementary aspects of the hazards causing the floods of Venice, namely (1) the relative sea level rise, (2) the occurrence of extreme water heights, and (3) the prediction of extreme water heights and floods. It emerges that the effect of compound events poses critical challenges to the forecast of floods, particularly from the perspective of effectively operating the new mobile barriers (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico – MoSE) in Venice and that the relative sea level rise is the key factor determining the future growth of the flood hazard, so that the present defence strategy is likely to become inadequate within this century under a high-emission scenario. Two strands of research are needed in the future. First, there is a need to better understand and reduce the uncertainty of the future evolution of the relative sea level and its extremes at Venice. However, this uncertainty might not be substantially reduced in the near future, reflecting the uncertain anthropogenic emissions and structural model features. Hence, complementary adaptive planning strategies appropriate for conditions of uncertainty should be explored and developed in the future.

中文翻译：

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威尼斯洪水和海平面：过去的演变、现在的问题和未来的预测（特刊介绍）

威尼斯是一个标志性的地方，也是处于危险之中的巨大历史和文化价值的典范。近几十年来，市中心洪水泛滥的频率急剧增加，预计这一威胁将在本世纪继续增长，甚至加速。本期特刊是三篇评论文章的合集，涉及导致威尼斯洪水的灾害的不同和互补方面，即（1）相对海平面上升，（2）极端水高的发生，以及（3）预测极端水位和洪水。复合事件的影响对洪水预报提出了严峻挑战，特别是从有效运行威尼斯新的移动屏障（Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico – MoSE）的角度来看，相对海平面上升是决定未来洪水灾害增长的关键因素，因此目前的防御策略很可能成为在高排放情景下，在本世纪内是不够的。未来需要进行两方面的研究。首先，需要更好地了解和减少威尼斯相对海平面及其极端情况未来演变的不确定性。然而，这种不确定性在不久的将来可能不会大幅减少，反映了不确定的人为排放和结构模型特征。因此，