A suggested activity

[gpkennedy]

The Mediterranean

Romantic Venice. Visit Venice in Italy by FLY TO Venice, Italy & search. I have an image of Venice in my head of gondoliers in canals and squares with tourists standing ankle deep in water. But I am ignorant of the geography of the city: where does the water come from? Closely observe the city and I can see the situation. It’s more like an island behind a sand bar. I can zoom in and rotate now and get a better sense of the city. This gets me thinking about global warning. I’d be looking carefully at the stability of that sand bar if I was a Venetian. I zoom out and see that Venice is located at the top of a long an bay and wonder about the tidal influences in Med. I know that the Med is narrow at the Gibraltar Straits but I wonder if the Suez Canal adds to the tides in the Med? I’m going to have a look to see if it just an open channel or does it also have locks?





Suez Canal Boat Cruise . FLY TO Suez, Egypt. On the flight over I remember that many workers were killed in the construction of the canal and seem to remember that malaria mosquitoes were responsible for malaria which did most of the damage. How can this be? My mental image of the Suez Canal comes from images of boats passing through sandy desert country. Where did the mozzies come from? On the flight over I see the Nile delta and suspect that this may have been the problem. I take a close look at the canal. I know how to zoom, tilt and rotate. Is there any evidence of locks on the canal or is it just open at both ends. I fly down the canal and at first glance I cannot observe any locks. I make a note to get some students to research this further. Young Michelle is a wiz at Google searches, she has learnt to discriminate. She comes up with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_canal


george

[sunfly]

it is a meteological problem in venice too. if they had strong winds from south the water rises over the normal. added to the tides the have too much water.
this wheather conditions we have often with a genua-depression in the adriatic gulf with heavy rain in this region.

greets jürgen(sunfly)

[society mike]

Venice, yes it's built on a sinking sand flat which itself is inside a lagoon. They have an ongoing multi million dollar project that is filling the edges of the lagoon so that only a few inlets make the Met. sea water enter the lagoon, then at the entrances, they installed huge underwater gates that fill with compressed air during rough weather or tidal surges. They then float up and "close" off access to the lagoon slowing the flow of water into the lagoon enough so it doesn't flood the city of Venice.
It is called the "MOSE Project".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSE_project

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venice/solutions.html