Climate Financing for Marine Transport: Analyzing the Impact of Climate Adaptation Investments in Inland Waterways (Part II)

The U.S. inland waterways play a vital role in the domestic economy, but extreme weather events (e.g., floods) perennially threaten to disrupt their operations. Exacerbating these concerns, climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of these disruptions in the future. However, despite these known risks, researchers have devoted little attention to evaluating the financial implications of climate change on inland waterway supply chains. In Part I of the project, the research team successfully integrated global climate models with downscaled flood projections. This task took longer than the team initially expected because of how nuanced the climate models are and because running the downscaled projections required additional computational resources that the team didn’t originally anticipate. Additionally, the team successfully integrated these flood scenarios with agent-based and economic models used to simulate supply chain disruptions and resulting economic impacts. In Part II of this project, the team focuses on integrating the decoupled net present value (DNPV) financial framework with the simulations. Doing so will allow the team to highlight cases where investments in resilient, water-borne infrastructure can offer cost-effective means of mitigating projected impacts of climate change. The team aims to use the development of The Port of Cates Landing, a flood-resilient port located near the mouth of the Upper Mississippi River, as an in-depth case study to demonstrate this approach. However, the work can be extended to other sections of the waterways and transportation modes.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $140052
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552348331

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center

  University of Arkansas
  Fayetteville, AR  United States  72701
• Performing Organizations:

  Vanderbilt University

  Box 96-B
  Nashville, TN  United States  37235
• Principal Investigators:

  Baroud, Hiba

  Philip, Craig

  Johnson, Paul M

• Start Date: 20240201
• Expected Completion Date: 20250831
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Climate change adaptation; Floods; Inland waterways; Investments; Return on investment
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Environment; Finance; Marine Transportation; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01910566
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552348331
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Feb 29 2024 7:22PM