Photo Gallery Facing the Floods
Venice, one of Europe's most beautiful cities, is fighting against two types of floods these days. A flood of people brings 20 million tourists into the city each year. And high water levels often leave parts of the city's historic center flooded. Here, a record flood in December 2010 is pictured. More than half of the city was flooded at the time.
Cruise ships dock around the city like strange animals, with more than 500 of them including Venice as a port of call each year. A single ship emits as much exhause gas as 15,000 cars. "So much for a car-free city," says Matteo Secchi, the founder of Veniceland, a group fighting to save the traditional Venice that was once home to Italians.
"The flood is driving the rats onto land," says an official with Venice's cultural agency, who is dressed as a rat. He is referring to Venice's winter floods, which have been transforming St. Mark's Square into a big puddle more and more frequently. He also means the rising human flood of tourists.
At a recent protest against the glut of tourism and the Disneyfication of Venice, a local porn star exposed her fake breasts in the middle of the Grand Canal. The Venetian Carnival is just around the corner. But this is a protest against the demise of the grand old city, not some merry parade.
A scuba diver poses on the flooded St. Marks Square: In the last 100 years, Venice has sunk by 23 centimeters (nine inches), and if what United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) scientists are predicting today is true, namely that the water level in the Adriatic lagoon could rise by 50 centimeters by the year 2100, the city could very well be underwater for 250 days a year.
The city is building an elaborate 4.5 billion ($6.17 billion) flood barrier system in a project of truly biblical proportions, but can MOSE, a play on the Italian name for the prophet Moses, really save the city from Mother Nature?
"MOSE will last 100 years," says engineer Giovanni Cecconi, 52, "and then we'll see what's next."
Venetian residents stage a mock funderal for the city. Three gonodolas escort a coffin along the famed canals in a symbolic lament for the once-flourishing city's decline.
