How Does the Venice Canal System Work?
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The city of Venice, Italy is not built on solid ground, but rather a cluster of mud islands in a lagoon on the Adriatic sea. The mud islands are divided by the Grand Canal, which is, by definition, more a river than a canal. The city is built upon pilings driven 15 feet into the clay below. Twenty-five miles of canals act as tributaries between the islands, all draining to the Grand Canal, which flows into the Adriatic. The primary purpose of the canal system is drainage, to avoid flooding in the city. High barometric pressure on the lower Adriatic, combined with northward blowing winds, frequently push up the water level on the northern end of the sea. The canal system keeps the city from being inundated with water, though floods are still common. A by-product of the canal system in Venice is navigation. The canals are like streets and the gondolas are like taxis. Gondoliers use long wooden poles to guide their craft through the city’s canals. The deepest point of the canal system is
