As sea levels rise, How will Europe survive? Venice fights to stay above the waterline.

“When the palazzos on the Grand Canal were built around the 16th century, the main sea level was below the first step,” Giovanni Cecconi, the president of the Venice Resilience Lab, tells NBC News.

“Nowadays, the water is about 3 feet over it. Divide that by 500 years, and you’ll get an average sea rise of up to half a feet per century.”