The effect of climate change on inland waterway transport

Generally, inland waterway transport (IWT) is characterised by a high degree of reliability and safety compared to other transport modes. Against the background of the climate change debate however, new concerns are starting to raise attention. IWT is expected to be more sensitive to climate change aspects than other transport modes, e.g. in terms of water level fluctuations and resulting effects on costs and reliability. The present paper specifically addresses the topic of adaptation to climate change, 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 building 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. The paper starts first with an overview of expected effects of climate change on the Rhine and Danube. Adaptation measures are evaluated in function of their cost-effectiveness, given the expected impact of climate change on the navigation conditions. 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. We consider four focal points for adaptation: fleet- and transport related strategies, operational concepts, improvement of forecasting tools and adaptation of production procedures and storekeeping. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of the Programme Committee of the Transport Research Arena 2012