Effect of Climate Change on Inland Waterway Transport

The present paper specifically addresses the topic of climate change impacts and adaptation, taking IWT as a case-study. The results figuring in the paper are based on the results of the EC funded ECCONET project, which is an interdisciplinary project combining the expertise gained from climatology, hydrology, transport-economics, ship engineering and inland waterway management. A quantitative approach is applied, using the results of existing climate ensembles, hydrological results from KLIWAS and the transport network models TRANSTOOLS and NODUS. ECCONET uses the concept of the impact chain of climate change. The paper starts first with an overview of modeling results and shows how at each stage of the impact chain model results are linked to another. First is indicated how a climate impact scenario was selected from a model ensembles for the Rhine and Danube regions. Then we show how hydrological previsions can be extracted for representative years in the near and far future. Finally it is explained how the previsions of navigation conditions can be used in a transport economic model. In parallel to the impact chain analysis, ECCONET evaluates targeted adaptation measures to climate change. The main concern for adaptation is coping with periods of low water levels, as these were empirically established as the most influential for the sector. It is shown how adaptation can be integrated with the transport network previsions and can be processed for cost-effectiveness analysis.

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AW020 Inland Water Transportation
  • Corporate Authors:

    Transportation Research Board

    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001
  • Authors:
    • Breemersch, Tim
    • Heyndrickx, Christophe J C
  • Conference:
  • Date: 2012

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 14p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01373722
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 12-3253
  • Files: TRIS, TRB
  • Created Date: Jun 25 2012 2:45PM