Effects of Climate Change On the inland waterway and other transport NETworks (ECCONET)

Description:

ECCONET, an EC FP7 project for DG MOVE which ran for a 3-year period from 2010-2012, specifically addressed the topic of adaptation to climate change, taking Inland Waterway Transport (IWT) as a case-study. The project covered both the impact of climate change on inland waterways( D1.1 Selected navigation routes and present climate conditions) as well as the study of adaptation measures.

The project initially evaluated recent climate change scenarios, leading to predictions on the weather conditions in the future. Naturally, these may result in changes of the hydrological balance of the inland waterway network, being either associated with less ice formation and more balanced waterway conditions over the year or extreme situations such as prolonged low water periods or floods, depending on the region considered. The next step of the project was to evaluate the effect of these changes on the costs and reliability associated with inland waterway transport and other transport, which might lead to changes in transport flows. These calculations form the basis of a baseline scenario, assuming little or no deviation in policy related to IWT or other transport modes. In parallel with the construction of the reference scenario, proper adaptation strategies were identified for coping with possible climate change effects on IWT. Final results contained projections of service quality, flows on the inland waterway network under climate change conditions, as well as cost-benefit assessments of possible adaptation strategies.

Project information

Lead

TRANSPORT & MOBILITY LEUVEN NV (BE) Christophe Heyndrickx

Partners

via donau (Austria), VU-FEWEB (The Netherlands), NEA Transport Research and Training (The Netherlands), FUCaM, BfG (Germany), VITUKI (Hungary), OMSZ (Hungary), DST (Germany), KNMI (The Netherlands)

Source of funding

FP 7