File:Saint Petersburg Keeps the Sea at Bay.jpeg
![File:Saint Petersburg Keeps the Sea at Bay.jpeg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Saint_Petersburg_Keeps_the_Sea_at_Bay.jpeg/800px-Saint_Petersburg_Keeps_the_Sea_at_Bay.jpeg?20210525002749)
Original file (4,972 × 3,263 pixels, file size: 5.44 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Captions
Captions
Summary
[edit]DescriptionSaint Petersburg Keeps the Sea at Bay.jpeg |
Floods have long plagued Saint Petersburg, Russia’s canal-filled “Venice of the North.” Spread across 42 marshy islands of the Neva River Delta, the historical core of the city rises just 1 to 2 meters (3 to 7 feet) above sea level. In 1703, construction had barely begun on Saint Petersburg’s first building—the star-shaped Peter and Paul Fortress—when floodwaters washed away construction materials at the site. Since then, more than 300 floods have hit the city, including three catastrophic events where water levels rose more than 3 meters and swamped thousands of buildings. The largest floods are typically triggered when cyclones in the Baltic Sea push water east into the Gulf of Finland and Neva Bay. The narrow, shallow gulf can set up powerful seiche waves that are especially dangerous if they coincide with high tides or seasonal floods on the Neva River. Russia’s answer to this flood prone-geography is the Saint Petersburg Flood Prevention Facility—a colossal complex that includes 11 dams, 6 locks, 30 water purification stations, and 2 navigation channels. As seen in this image from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, the structure spans 25 kilometers (16 miles) across the Gulf of Finland, from Lomonosov northward to Kotlin Island, and then east toward Gorskaya. A six-lane highway runs across the structure’s wide top. Work began on the project in 1979, but it was not until 2011 that officials declared it operational. The $3.85 billion structure is designed to withstand storm surges of 5 meters. Most of the time the floodgates are left open to allow water and marine life to pass. However, the flow can be cut within 45 minutes if a flood is imminent, as has been done more than a dozen times in the past decade. Vulnerable areas in the historic core of the city—which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site—have not experienced damaging flooding since the dam opened. |
Date | |
Source | https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148293/saint-petersburg-keeps-the-sea-at-bay |
Author | NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland. |
Licensing
[edit]Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
![]() |
This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.) | ![]() |
![]() |
Warnings:
|
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
current | 00:27, 25 May 2021 | ![]() | 4,972 × 3,263 (5.44 MB) | StellarHalo (talk | contribs) | {{Information |Description=Floods have long plagued Saint Petersburg, Russia’s canal-filled “Venice of the North.” Spread across 42 marshy islands of the Neva River Delta, the historical core of the city rises just 1 to 2 meters (3 to 7 feet) above sea level. In 1703, construction had barely begun on Saint Petersburg’s first building—the star-shaped Peter and Paul Fortress—when floodwaters washed away construction materials at the site. Since then, more than 300 floods have hit the city, inc... |
You cannot overwrite this file.
File usage on Commons
There are no pages that use this file.
Metadata
This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.
Orientation | Normal |
---|---|
Horizontal resolution | 72 dpi |
Vertical resolution | 72 dpi |
Software used | Adobe Photoshop 22.1 (Macintosh) |
File change date and time | 11:45, 7 May 2021 |
Color space | sRGB |
Date and time of digitizing | 07:45, 7 May 2021 |
Date metadata was last modified | 07:45, 7 May 2021 |
Unique ID of original document | xmp.did:ce279ddf-b87c-4d17-a9a6-557bc362bb0f |