Venice under water again as third record tide floods the city

Venice: Venice has seen another exceptional tide in a season that is setting records, with stores and museums closed on Sunday in the hardest-hit area around St Mark's Square.

A Venetian bar on Sunday as water levels rise again.

Tourists who had donned rubber boots to photograph the spectacle were disappointed when officials closed down the historic square as winds rippled across the rising waters.

The doors of St Mark's Basilica were shut to the public as officials stacked sandbags in canal-side windows to stop water entering the crypt again.

Venice's Tide Office said the peak tide of 1.5 metres hit just after 1pm local time, as a weather front off the coast blocked southerly winds from the Adriatic Sea from pushing the tide to the predicted level of 1.6 metres.

Read the story from The Age by Colleen Barry and Luco Bruno - “Venice under water again as third record tide floods the city.”

Venice is flooded, but other cities are in much greater danger

Venice has flooded. But while worry about the worst floods in a decade and warnings about the impacts of climate change and sea level rise dominate most of the media coverage, there’s a more complex story to be told.

Piazza San Marco during Venice’s acqua alta (flooding).

In Venice, floods are a feature, not a bug. The city was founded by people fleeing the Huns. They were safe in the lagoon (a word borrowed from Venetian), where horses and armoured men could not advance: the soggy ground would slow the enemy, the tide would wash them out.

Halfway between land and sea, trade is the only way to make a living. And so Venetians became successful merchants and built a magnificent city, with dazzling palaces and splendid churches filled with delightful works of art.

Read the report from The Conversation by the Professor of Economics from the  University of Sussex, Richard Tol - "Venice is flooded, but other cities are in much greater danger.”