Silver River
Follows the Arno River through Tuscany, and reports on plans to return the river to its former glory.
Rolling hills and pristine meandering rivers - the Tuscany immortalised in landscape paintings and a thousand holiday photographs. So how does the idyll match up to reality? Flowing through the heart of Tuscany, the Arno River has suffered from pollution, and environmental damage like so many of Europe's waterways. As the river flows through Florence, industrial pollution and a city population swelled by tourists take its toll on the water quality. And yet downstream a costly cleansing process removes the pollutants to make the water drinkable. Now there are projects afoot to return the river to its former glory.