Cascading effects of sustained low water on inland shipping

The river Rhine is one of Europe’s busiest waterways and part the Rhine-Alpine corridor. In 2018 experienced a severe low discharge extreme. This impacted river’s transport capacity for period several months, causing shortages source materials fuels in regions far in-land. Historically, prolonged droughts this magnitude are not uncommon. Concerns have been raised, however, that climate change may further increase their frequency severity. Additionally increased proportion larger vessels overall fleet composition has made supply cargo via more vulnerable to reduced water depths. A better understanding risks effects sustained levels Inland Waterway Transport network performance therefore essential enable sensible mitigation. An integral model explicitly links state chain at scale corridors, appears be yet available. paper suggests novel method include cascading events (and mitigating measures) risk assessments waterborne performance, system level. It shown its implementation can describe management terminal operation.