The hydrographic basin

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After flowing down the upper Valsugana, the Brenta river enters the Veneto where it receives the waters of the Cismon river, which flows down from the Pale di San Martino mountains, in its turn fed by the Vanoi torrent, which descends from the Lagorai mountains.
Crossing the Brenta valley, the river receives karstic spring waters from the Grappa massif (Fontanazzi of Cismon and Solagna) and from the Asiago plateau (Ponte Subiolo, Oliero, Rea) to reach Bassano del Grappa, after flowing 70 km through the mountains.

This is where the section on the plains begins, fed along the way by springs on the plains and by the Muson dei Sassi canal. Near Padua the river splits into the Eastern branch now called the Brenta Riviera (flanked by villas), which flows out into the Venetian lagoon at Fusina – and the Western branch which flows into the sea south of Chioggia, and which was created by the Venetian Republic in the 16th century to transport sediments carried in the river away from the lagoon to prevent it from silting up.