The canals of Venice, the cities of Sicily’s Val di Noto, the picturesque Cinque Terre, the medieval alleys of Ferrara: it’s not just (over) tourism to pose a threat to these, and others, Unesco World Heritage sites in Italy.

All those sites located in low-lying coastal areas of the Mediterranean are at risk from flooding and coastal erosion.
β€œUntil 2100, flood risk may increase by 50% and erosion risk by 13% across the region,” reports the study, conducted at the University of Kiel in Germany.
One third of the sites located, in part or in full, in what the study calls β€œMediterranean Low Elevation Coastal Zone,” are in Italy (15).They include: Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto, the Historic Center of Naples, Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta, the Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna, the Archaeological Area and Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia, Portovenere, Cinque Terre and the Islands, Genoa,
Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, the Archaeological Areas of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Amalfi Coast, Syracuse, Venice and its Lagoon, the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park with the site of Paestum, the Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto…