CLAR­ION Pro­ject Takes the Lead in Strength­en­ing Eu­ro­pean Ports' Re­silience

CLAR­ION Pro­ject was kicked off in Rot­ter­dam and Delft, The Nether­lands. Funded by the Hori­zon Eu­rope Pro­gramme (Pro­ject 101147041 — CLAR­ION) and co­or­di­nated by TU Delft, Fac­ulty of Civil En­gi­neer­ing and Geo­sciences, the Ge­ot­ech­ni­cal En­gi­neer­ing Sec­tion, CLAR­ION is ded­i­cated to en­hanc­ing the re­silience and sus­tain­abil­ity of Eu­ro­pean ports in the face of cli­mate-re­lated chal­lenges, with a total EU bud­get of ap­prox­i­mately 7 mil­lion euros.

Fea­tur­ing the top-3 ports in Eu­rope in terms of con­tainer through­put, namely Rot­ter­dam, Antwerp/Bruges and Ham­burg in the North Sea and the largest Eu­ro­pean port in the Black Sea, Con­stanta, CLAR­ION will pur­sue am­bi­tious ob­jec­tives to in­crease the op­er­a­tional avail­abil­ity of port in­fra­struc­tures dur­ing ex­treme events, re­duc­ing ac­ci­dents caused by cli­mate-re­lated dis­rup­tions.

In line with the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion's EU Strat­egy on Adap­ta­tion to Cli­mate Change and the Eu­ro­pean Green Deal, CLAR­ION will sup­port the modal shifts to­wards low-emis­sion trans­port sys­tems min­i­miz­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact. Dur­ing the pro­ject 10 pilot demon­stra­tors will be con­ducted to test and de­ploy ad­vanced tech­nolo­gies and strate­gies fo­cus­ing on smart quay walls, mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem for the cor­ro­sion of port in­fra­struc­ture, dredged sed­i­ment reuse, flood im­pact con­trol, ex­treme weather fore­cast­ing and more, push­ing the bound­aries of cur­rent prac­tices to fu­ture-proof port in­fra­struc­ture also en­sur­ing the trans­fer­abil­ity of re­sults.

“At Port of Antwerp-Bruges, we are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the fu­ture-proof and cli­mate re­silient na­ture of our in­fra­struc­ture. As we are fac­ing sim­i­lar chal­lenges as the ports of Rot­ter­dam and Ham­burg, we are de­lighted to col­lab­o­rate with them through the CLAR­ION Eu­ro­pean sub­sidy pro­gram on 'Cli­mate Re­silient and Safe Mar­itime Ports', tak­ing our part­ner­ship to the next level. Ad­di­tion­ally, we are thrilled to work along­side our local part­ners, Brabo and the Antwerp Mar­itime Acad­emy, in de­vel­op­ing two demo cases. We ea­gerly an­tic­i­pate the ex­change of in­sights and lessons learned with our fel­low ports and part­ners”, stated Jacques Van­der­meiren, CEO Port of Antwerp-Bruges.

“The de­vel­op­ment strat­egy of the port of Con­stanta will take cli­mate change into ac­count as a major fac­tor. In order to face its ef­fects in the fu­ture, MPAC (Na­tional Com­pany Mar­itime Ports Ad­min­is­tra­tion SA Con­stanta) com­mits to pro­mote in­no­va­tions and mod­ern tech­nolo­gies, as a rel­e­vant in­stru­ment to in­crease port ef­fi­ciency. In this sense, the CLAR­ION pro­ject is first of all a tool for learn­ing the lat­est trends in the field of in­no­va­tion ap­pli­ca­tions in sea and river ports, in order to be able to later pro­mote and repli­cate them at the level of the en­tire port com­mu­nity, but also with po­ten­tial ef­fects at the level of the lo­gis­tic chains in­flu­enced by the Port of Con­stanta. That is why the CLAR­ION pro­ject, which an­a­lyzes the im­pact of cli­mate changes and pos­si­ble mit­i­ga­tion so­lu­tions, will con­tribute de­ci­sively to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the best strate­gies and mea­sures to en­sure the sta­bil­ity and re­silience of the port in­fra­struc­ture. The use of in­no­v­a­tive means (drones, sen­sors, AI, etc.) pro­vided by CLAR­ION through a pilot pro­ject im­ple­mented in the Port of Con­stanta, rep­re­sents an im­por­tant step in the port trans­for­ma­tion and mod­ern­iza­tion”, de­clares Mihai Teodor­escu, Port of Con­stanta CEO.

"One of the aims of for­ward-look­ing port plan­ning is to en­sure the best pos­si­ble safe and re­li­able ac­ces­si­bil­ity of the port. The abil­ity to con­tin­u­ously adapt to chang­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions, such as cli­mate change or ex­treme weather con­di­tions, is highly rel­e­vant in this con­text. The HPA is also meet­ing these chal­lenges with new tech­nolo­gies such as ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion. We are there­fore de­lighted to be part of the CLAR­ION pro­ject to work on spe­cific use cases to­gether with our part­ners", says Jens Meier, CEO of the Ham­burg Port Au­thor­ity (HPA).

“Phys­i­cal risks from cli­mate change are in­creas­ingly af­fect­ing our port in­fra­struc­ture and as­sets, as well as those of our cus­tomers. The port of Rot­ter­dam is largely sit­u­ated out­side the dykes, which means that dykes and bar­ri­ers do not fully pro­tect the port. This makes it more vul­ner­a­ble to ris­ing sea lev­els. Al­though the dif­fer­ent sites in the port are built rel­a­tively high above sea level and are partly pro­tected by storm surge bar­ri­ers, we are con­tin­u­ously de­vel­op­ing mea­sures to en­sure the port re­mains re­silient to cli­mate change in the fu­ture. As these adap­ta­tion chal­lenges are equally rel­e­vant to our neigh­bour­ing ports Antwerp and Ham­burg, as well as Danube-con­nected Con­stanta, we are glad to be a part­ner of the CLAR­ION pro­ject. We have a long-stand­ing re­la­tion with TU Delft in joint re­search and look for­ward to fruit­ful co­op­er­a­tion lead­ing to re­sults that ports can im­ple­ment from the sea­side to the hin­ter­land” says Boudewijn Siemons, CEO of the Port of Rot­ter­dam.

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About CLAR­ION

CLAR­ION (Cli­mate Re­silient Port In­fra­struc­ture) is a col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­ject funded by the Hori­zon Eu­rope Pro­gramme (Pro­ject 101147041 — CLAR­ION), aimed at en­hanc­ing the re­silience, sus­tain­abil­ity, and se­cu­rity of Eu­ro­pean ports in the face of cli­mate change. Bring­ing to­gether a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary team of 21 part­ners from 10 Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, CLAR­ION will de­velop and im­ple­ment in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to mit­i­gate the im­pacts of cli­mate change on port in­fra­struc­ture.

CLAR­ION aligns with the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion's EU Strat­egy on Adap­ta­tion to Cli­mate Change and the Eu­ro­pean Green Deal, em­pha­siz­ing the im­por­tance of cli­mate-re­silient in­fra­struc­ture in achiev­ing cli­mate neu­tral­ity by 2050. By em­brac­ing these ini­tia­tives, CLAR­ION aims to con­tribute to Eu­rope's col­lec­tive ef­forts to com­bat cli­mate change and build a sus­tain­able fu­ture.

The total EU bud­get for the pro­ject amounts to ap­prox­i­mately 7 mil­lion euros, span­ning a 48-month du­ra­tion and con­clud­ing in April 2028.

Con­tact in­for­ma­tion - Ham­burg Port Au­thor­ity, Sinje Pangritz, press­es­telle@​hpa.​hamburg.​de