Discover Sacca degli Scardovari

The sacca is a shallow brackish lagoon at the southern end of the Veneto, enclosed from the Adriatic by long sandbars and fed by branches of the Po.

Depths are slight -- much of it can be worked from a standing boat -- and the bottom is soft mud. Salinity varies with the river's flow and the tide, which is what makes it productive for shellfish and attractive to birds.

Around it are reedbeds, reclaimed farmland and rice fields, most of them below sea level and kept dry by embankments and pumping stations.

The whole system is changing measurably: the delta is still advancing seaward while the land behind subsides, and salt is pushing further up the channels each decade.