places @ risk of flooding

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LISTS

12 Historic Places at Risk From Rising Waters

It's not just Venice: Flooding is an increasingly big problem for heritage sites around the world.

BY MICHELLE CASSIDY, SENIOR ASSOCIATE PLACES EDITOR

12 PLACES

This week, Venice, Italy, experienced some of the worst flooding in its history. Water more than six feet deep is some places has submerged many of the historic city’s most revered sites. While Venice is no stranger to floods, this week’s are the most extreme it has seen in 50 years. As climate change pushes sea levels higher, floods like this one—or worse—are likely to become more common.

Venice isn’t the only place at risk. More extreme and more frequent flooding is just as big of a concern in Naples, Florida, as in Naples, Italy. Island communities such as the Bahamas and Puerto Rico are facing increasingly powerful hurricanes, and stronger monsoons are contributing to dangerous flooding in southeast Asia. And climate change-related floods aren’t limited to waterfront property: Melting glaciers mean that even mountain regions lie in the flood path.

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1

VENICE, ITALY

Libreria Acqua Alta

Venice’s self-proclaimed “most beautiful bookstore in the world” has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats. When water rises out of the canals, it can fill the store with several inches of water.

2

POMPEI, ITALY

Villa dei Misteri

This villa was buried under ash after the eruption of Vesuvius. The building and its ancient frescos stayed remarkably intact, but the increasing threat of coastal erosion and flooding put these ruins at high risk—the average depth of flood risk could rise to more than five feet by 2100.

3

DUBROVNIK, CROATIA

Hotel had over 200 rooms, a helipad, and its own private boat dock. The complex has remained largely abandoned since the Croatian War of Independence (save for a brief stint as a set on Game of Thrones). Now heavy rainfall and rising seas have put it at risk.Belvedere

When this hotel opened in 1985 it 

4

SITE ARCHÉOLOGIQUE DE CARTHAGE, TUNISIA

Tophet at Carthage

This burial site is one part of the remains of Carthage in Tunisia that is at risk of damage from storm surges. It is one of the largest cemeteries from the Phoenician period, and held over 20,000 funerary urns stuffed with the cremated ashes and bone fragments of young children.

5

MARCO ISLAND, FLORIDA

Cape Romano Dome House

This ultra-modern house is a complex of stilted concrete igloos that is being reclaimed by the sea. When it was built in 1981, the house was on firm beach, but the water slowly encroached until the domes were surrounded on all sides. The concrete pillars elevating the domes are the only reason they still stand.

6

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA

Castillo de San Marcos

This fort is famous for its sturdy stone walls, which are peppered by holes—the marks of the many battles the fort withstood. As hurricanes grow stronger, wind and water may do what cannonballs never could, and bring down the walls of this fort.

7

BAHAMAS

Great Isaac Cay

Erected in the 1850s to prevent merchant ships from disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle, the 152-foot tall Great Isaac Lighthouse has become more of a participant in the area’s mysteries than a protector. Powerful storms like 2019’s Hurricane Dorian have devastated the buildings of the Bahamas.

8

CULEBRA, PUERTO RICO

The Tanks of Flamenco Beach

Just before World War II, the US Navy used this picturesque island as a testing ground. They evacuated in the 1970s, but left behind a number of tanks to rust, which locals covered in layers of graffiti. Relative sea levels in Puerto Rico are projected to rise about a foot by 2050, making anything located on the coast in danger of being washed out to sea.

9

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Wat Mahathat (Temple of the Great Relic)

This temple is home to the Mahanikai school of Buddhism. Wat Mahathat was founded in the 18th century, even before the founding of Bangkok in 1782. Parts of the temple grounds were submerged in a massive 2011 flood.

10

LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO

Bandelier National Monument

Small shelters and their rows of windows pock the side of these hills. Built between 1150 and 1550, some of the dwellings once stood as tall as three stories, supported by beams jammed right into the rock. In 2013 Bandelier National Monument experienced the largest flood in its recorded history when several feet of water cascaded down Frijoles Canyon.

11

MUCHU, NEPAL

Rinchenling Gompa

On the banks of a small tributary of the Limi River, the remote Rinchenling Gompa is one of the highest temples in the world. In recent years, melting glaciers have threatened the temple. A glacial lake high above Halji Village burst in 2011, resulting in a flood that caused significant damage to many of its structures.

12

HUALLIN, PERU

Huascarán National Park

Situated in the world's highest tropical mountain range, this park is home to an array of exotic plants and animals. It’s part of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, which is full of lakes that are subject to dangerous outburst floods as the glaciers that feed them melt at an increasingly rapid pace.

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