The floating price of beauty: Water and land management in Venice through the centuries

Many actions promoted by the Serenissima through the centuries in order to manage the fragile balance of the lagoon triggered political, economic, environmental, and social issues both within the Republic and with neighbouring states. As it often happens in water management, fixing a problem at one point means causing other problems elsewhere: and Venice learned this lesson only too well. Another effect, however, was that in the Lagoon human and environmental history became so entangled that it would be hardly possible (and certainly pointless) to treat them separately. And in fact, in the stream of professional and public debates which arose from – and in turn, shaped – Venice’s efforts to manage a constantly changing environment, we can find the same mass of environmental, scientific, social, political, cultural, economic issues that we are facing today at a global level.