Last month Venice suffered the fourth highest floods in its history. Water seeped up through the drains, over the canal sides and into the houses, businesses and hotels of the city. And few were spared, with around 75% of streets awash. Not that it’s a new phenomenon as Venice has been flooding for centuries. Artist Federico Moja even captured acqua alta in his painting of St Mark’s Square dated 1853.

So with flood barriers in place around the world in New Orleans, Amsterdam and London, what is it about the Italian city that still makes it so vulnerable and what is being done to protect it? Scattered over dozens of islands separated by canals and surrounded by water, Venice is known as the floating city. It sits at the center of a lagoon at the top of the Adriatic Sea and twice a day the tide hurries in bringing salt water to nourish the brackish ecology.