Sedimenta

Location: Romagna, Italy
Year: 2023
Type: Satellite imagery

In May 2023 Romagna, in northern Italy, flooded. Two weeks brought the rain of seven months: 23 rivers overflowed, 43 towns went under water, at least 17 people died and 50,000 were displaced.

Floods are pictured on land. Sedimenta looks at the sea, where soil washed off the hills by the rivers drew plumes of sediment along more than 33 km of coast, visible from space. The images show the damage we set in motion, and the strange beauty it leaves behind.

Teal sediment folding over itself, green water below

Swirls of bright cyan sediment against dark water

A wall of cyan sediment pressing into dark open sea

Teal water with white plumes rising at the lower right

Dark green water, a boat wake at the top, pale sediment below

Green water with the frayed edge of a sediment plume

Pale sediment fanning out into deep green water

Boat wakes like streaks of light across dark swirling water

A plume of pale sediment turning into dark blue water

A boat's wake cutting across bands of green sediment

Ships scattered where green sediment meets deep blue sea

A pale band of sediment curving through dark green water

Sediment trails off the mouths of the four main rivers of Romagna, 23 May 2023 — 23 May

Sediment plumes off the four river mouths, 5 May 2023 — 5 May

Bright sediment plumes fanning out from the four river mouths, 4 May 2023 — 4 May

The four river mouths under cloud before the floods, 30 April 2023 — 30 April

Credits

Data: Modified Copernicus Sentinel-2 L2A data (2023), obtained via EOS Data Analytics, Inc. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO