Where did the water from the canals in Venice go
For the second year in a row, due to low tide, the water level in Venice reaches record lows, and the city is almost drained. Tourists come here hoping to ride in gondolas, but their plans are dashed by the harsh reality, because without water, the main type of Venetian transport simply gets stuck on the muddy and muddy bottom of the canals.
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The exceptionally low water level is caused by abnormal tides and catastrophically low rainfall in northeastern Italy. Although low tide is normal for this time of year, this year the water level has dropped 70 cm below average. This is surprising, considering that Venice is gradually sinking under the water and now floods in the city have become more commonplace than tides.
The low water level in the canals exposed all the dirt in the city. Years of poor-quality maintenance of the Venetian canals can be seen in the mounds of mud and silt that have grown along the banks of the canals. Due to insufficient purification, the depth of the channels decreases, and this increases the likelihood of floating debris entering the engines of boats. Without water, the literally crumbling foundations of historical buildings also became visible.
The Venetian authorities have always been apathetic to the issue of canal cleaning. Channel cleaning has only recently begun, since the late 1990s, after almost fifty years of neglect. Venice also lacks a modern sewerage system.
From time immemorial, all human sewage has been drained into channels, although in large buildings wastewater must undergo a certain pre-treatment before it ends up in the channels. Some palazzi have their own septic tanks, but always some amount leaks into the channels. Therefore, there is always a recognizable unpleasant smell in Venice.
In recent years, the city council has spent less and less money on canal maintenance, redistributing funds to complete the construction of MOSE, a 5.4 billion euro flood gate complex that will protect the Venetian Lagoon from the constant floods plaguing the city.
For 50 years since the 1970s, local industries have been recklessly pumping groundwater out of aquifers, and the city has sunk by about 23 cm. Over the past couple of decades, flooding has noticeably slowed down, but the level of the city still drops by about 1-2 millimeters per year. In these circumstances, it is especially strange that the canals of Venice were left without water.