The research activities in the lagoon, as well as the understanding of natural phenomena, are directed to the study of the ecological effects of the major pressures acting on the system, including which the input of nutrients from agricultural and urban sources, industrial activity and port (Porto Marghera, Venice Maritime Station, the commercial port in Chioggia), the release of pollutants accumulated in sediments, the intense traffic ships and smaller boats,, the morphological trivialization. In recent decades the Tapes philippinarum has generated problems related to collection techniques. Is focusing attention to the increasing presence of alien species both plant that animals.

The site is equipped with two fixed stations: a meteo-oceanographic buoy (E1 buoy) and an elastic beacon equipped with meteo-oceanographic sensors (S1-GB beacon). The fixed stations were deployed in the framework of a multidisciplinary research project that uses automated stations to study the marine environment, in cooperation between the Insitute of Marine Science (ISMAR) in Bologna (CNR) and other public and governmental Research Institutes. The S1 buoy was installed in 2004 at the Po river Delta and recently (2015) implemented being now an elastic beacon. The E1 buoy is off the coast of Rimini town measuring in near real-time meteo and physico-chemical oceanographic parameters at different depths in the water column. It records every 5-10-15-30 minutes atmospheric pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed , wind gust, wind direction, net solar radiation, water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, fluorescence, turbidity, speed and direction of the currents, height, direction and period of the wawes . The data are transmitted via GSM and downloaded (on average every 2-4 hours) at the Data Center of the Institute of ISMAR in Bologna. Data are daily validated and analysed, in order to be used for different studies.

The Gulf of Venice is a gulf that borders modern-day Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, and is at the north of the Adriatic Sea between the delta of the Po river in northern Italy and the Istria peninsula in Croatia. The site is under a heavy antropic impact (nutrient loads, coastal towns, fishery, tourism maritime routes). In the past eutrophic events struck the ecosystem and, more recently, frequent mucus macro-aggregates extended in the whole basin. Study of long term historical time series of the biotic community in the Gulf of Venice in relation with the biogeochemical cycles and physical properties of sea-water have been conducted since the '70s.