SHIP AND CHANNEL BYOLADOKUN SULLAIMAN

what is the condition of navigation channel around your community
Every human activities on earth, is about need and response to need ,and of course mitigation – issue relating to channel and ships is not left behind in this – the Ship is about port and access to port by optimum size of ships and its associated economics implication can be made available through navigable channel where maintenance dredging is needed. Ship production and condition of channel are out of phase. Economic of large scale and demand has begot big ship to emerge within a short period of time after second world war- however less attention has been given to the channels that will continue to accommodate these ships. Large ships typically maneuver with difficulty in confined areas, and channel width is a critical component of deep-draft channels.

For years, normal practice of human activities waits for disasters to come before we take care of the environment we live or operate and of course that support our life .It remain our responsibility as human to be serious as time is calling to change the way do things – especially using proactive approach rather than conventional reactive approach necessary for studying , recording, analyzing ,integrating and matching new system with the environment to ensure preparedness and reliability through simulation and adjustment that will minimize calamities and heavy disasters cause by point form degradation that has resulted to unprecedented floods and landslides especially in coastal areas.

Consequences of system imbalance

Today and everyday, flood waters is coming and taking over our cities, cut off transport, routes, communication power supplies, have inundated destroyed our homes, crops and livelihoods, affect millions in rural and urban areas. Areas that are especially hard-hit have seen widespread devastation death from heaviest rainfall on record that has forced and forced millions of people from their homes, and neighboring state have seen with unprecedented severe damaged, damage ranging from agriculture and industrial units is also widespread .

Shipping trend

In shipping, ships coming to the market need to be matched with the port condition , ships are necessary to facilitate trading through marine transportation, and Recent time has proved that there is continuous growth or need for larger and sophisticated ship through increasing shipping activities and this has lead to design and production of sophisticated state of art safety oriented marine vehicle in term of size, speed and structure- albeit, this safety based designed development is out of phase with conditions of navigation channels. To create a balance for safe navigation in restricted water this big ship will ply, we must maintain the channel at a frequency the ship production are growing. This make it incumbent authorities concerned upon regarding our waterways to evaluate and address the risks associated with ships that are plying them and find way and information sharing avenue systems for users of waterway. Recent projection is looking at 18,000 TEU. Which I believe the technological capability is there for such target.

Channel and vessel Characteristics

The main characteristics of a channel may be grouped into the following general categories:
1 Channel Layout (i.e., plan view path characteristics such as straight and curved sections)
2 Channel Cross-Section (hydrodynamic characteristics such as depth, width, and side-slopes) many factors feed into the determination of the dimensions and specifications of channel characteristics, including:
3 Vessel traffic characteristics (e.g., traffic mix and density; length, beam, draft, air draft, etc. of vessels); environmental factors (e.g., tide, wind, waves, currents); and location and characteristics of features such as bridges, and economics, along with many others
Vessel Design characteristics

Ship - Important characteristics being considered in ship design regarding their controllability in constricted waters are:
1 Container ships have large windage that can complicate ship controllability in narrow channels as well as during slow speed maneuvering;
2 Direct-drive diesel ships with high installed power to achieve design service speeds can, in some cases, have a minimum bare steerage speed of about 8 knots —quite a high speed in confined waters;

Maintenance dredging
Maintenance dredging with objective to reduce channel delay, accept big ship to be done in environmental sustainable manner and optimal efficiency – In maintenance dredging quantifying the loss of depth pave wave for dredging requirement to be determined and this lead to optimal choice of dredger.

Impacts level – Impact level is characterized into the following categories:
Impact to channel during operations (Permanent effect) :
1-Hydraulic (Wave climate in port, Reduction of wave height Navigational condition and safety)
2-Environmental (Coastline erosion development, Maintenance dredging, salt intrusion into the lagoon)
3-Fisheries (Aquatic life, Water quality at disposal site)
Effect during construction-(temporary):
1-Fisheries
2-Navigational and port operations
3-Urban land traffic
4-Recreation

Sustainability
Principle 15 of the 1992 UN conference on the Environment & Development in Rio de Janerio:
“In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by states according to their capabilities. Where there is threat of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”

In line with UN recommendation to balance environment with economics on development issue with doctrine of sustainability, maritime industry need to adjust to the ways we do things in a world sensitivity characterized by sustainability capacity building, efficiency optimization of development, practice and operations that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their need.

Environmental sustainability

Some typical environmentally beneficial uses of dredged material include:
1 Watch out for reef and coastal species
2 wetland creations or improvements
3 Beach fills and/or shore protection.
4 coal combustion by-products as cultch material
5 Recycled of seds. for roadways, golf car paths, and building foundations
6 Developed on-site system to treat contaminated marine sediments

Economic sustainability
1 For the regulatory agencies, it is extremely important to ensure that safety is not compromised for the sake of efficiency.
2 For the operational agencies, it is equally important that efficiency is not compromised in order to optimize safety.

Distinguish Hazard & Risk
Hazard: Anything that can cause harm (e.g. chemicals, electricity, natural disasters)
Severity may be measured by:
1 No. of people affected
2 Monetary loss
3 Equipment downtime
4 Area affected
5 Nature of credible accident
Risk assessment is a process that evaluates both the SEVERITY and PROBABILITY of adverse consequence (Hazard) of the project.. Systematic process to quantitatively measure perceived risks/values of waterways using input from waterway users/experts.

Dealing with Uncertainty and risk
Uncertainty will always be part of our activities because of limitation of knowledge of unseen in real world settings issue associated with uncertainty are normally.
1 Influences on recovery process
2 Test of new advancements
3 Influence on policy
4 Address system changes over time
5 services & resou
Risk management is the evaluation of alternative risk reduction measures and the implementation of those that appear cost effective .where Zero discharge = zero risk, but the challenge is to bring the risk to acceptable level and at the same time, derive the max.

Critical activities involved in port projects like entrance channel design, oil spillage, break touches, navigations condition, oil spillage, fisheries, aquatic life, sediment and disposal need go through intense studies and review on justification of containment measure recommended for better protection against wave, improvement of navigational safety conditions. But little is not done on making policies to for periodic overhauling or assessment nor do such do critical test or simulation of extreme flooding hat visit hearth like tsunami. various environment institution have various methodology and limitation they follow to simulate or determine risk , integrating them or using good faculty of judgment to borrow them in other situation could be good thing to be ahead of destructive disaster. In shipping IMO has standard rules and limitation assigned for disaster and of vessels and channel. But nonetheless, there is no standard rules put in place for periodic simulation and assessment. So better check what is going with the bottom of water around your house.

oladokuns@gmail.com