High water in Venice

Photo: Therese Trinko / Flickr)

The Grand Canal is busy with waterbuses, water taxis and gondolas. In this photo by Therese Trinko, taken in the late afternoon from the Rialto Bridge in Venice, it depicts a scene that would be familiar to Canaletto and Giovanni Bellini.

The city of Venice, now threatened by subsidence (buildings sinking very slowly into the Venetian lagoon) and a rising sea level, is taking measures against this threat. The MOSE project, now under construction, is a fantastically complicated barrier of 79 separate 300-ton submerged flaps that will be raised to keep the Adriatic Sea at bay at times of extremely high tides.