A bird sat in floodwater in Venice, Italy as flooding continues to plague the city.

Footage shows the bird soaking in the high water – locally known as ‘acqua alta’ – as tourists walked through the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy, on October 8.

The lagoon city’s increasingly frequent and worsening inundation, even during flood off-season, has shocked even locals, and sounded warning sirens about the threat to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A study published by the European Geosciences Union said that, in a worst-case scenario, sea level in Venice is expected to rise by 120 centimetres by the end of the century.

A sox-billion-euro network of underwater barriers called Moses has helped stave off severe flooding, but scientists fear that its usefulness could be limited in the long term if the situation deteriorates.

Some environmentalists and scientists have put forward the theory of climate change and global warming as being the reason for the floods in Venice.