Drought is hitting Venice hard — really hard.
The city is experiencing extremely low tides that are drying up the canals the ancient city relies on for transportation.
What is causing the drought in Venice?
Part of the extreme is due to “a high pressure weather system that has lingered for weeks over Western Europe,” but another longer-term impact stems from the Alps receiving “less than half of their normal snowfall this winter,” CBS News reported.
“We are in a water deficit situation that has been building up since the winter of 2020-2021,” said Massimiliano Pasqui, an Italian climate expert for the National Research Council of Italy, per The Guardian. “... We need to recover 500mm in the north-western regions: we need 50 days of rain.”
The Po River basin runs down from the Alps through to the Adriatic Sea and is Italy’s longest river and supplies much of the water for Italy’s agricultural needs.
According to CBS News, “Italy suffered its worst drought in 70 years” last summer. The water not only provides transportation through the beautiful water-filled city, it also protects the old wood and brick from the impacts of air that can age the materials.
Isn’t Venice usually more concerned about flooding than drought?
Usually the city’s water concerns center around flooding. NASA reported that the city used to experience two “high-water events” per decade throughout the first half of the 20th century, but now it experiences them more than 40 times per decade.
“Like the fabled city of Atlantis, the city is at risk of being submerged,” USA Today reported. “Autumn and winter high tides flood city streets and raise water levels on the canals, making it difficult or impossible for boats to squeeze under the bridges.”
What are the origins of Venice?
The iconic and beautiful tourist destination is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is made up of 118 little islands connected by bridges and canals.
It has long been told that Venice was built during the fifth century when Venetians fled the mainland to escape invaders and built the city on the lagoons to make it “more difficult for horses and warriors to reach the new city,” per Context Travel.
But many historians now believe the city was built for commerce and fishing, according to Context Travel.
The city is an extremely popular travel spot, seeing at least 10.2 million tourists each year before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Italy’s bureau of statistics. The New York Times estimates the actual number could be closer to 20 million annually to include daytrippers who drop in from cruise ships or bus tours.