MARIN and the Dutch government join forces to examine the navigational safety of inland ships in shallow water

MARIN has joined forces with Rijkswaterstaat – the Dutch government’s executive agency in charge of public works and water management in the Netherlands - to assess the navigational safety of inland ships in sailing conditions, particularly when they are in very shallow waters.
The Dutch rivers and canals are of vital importance to transport cargo into and throughout the Netherlands. However, the capacity in these traffic corridors is highly dependent on the water level, which drives the loading capacity of the sailing ships. With more frequent and longer episodes of low water levels, such as in 2018 and 2019, inland waterway transport is becoming more and more vulnerable to climate changes in light of global warming. It is therefore critical to review and adapt good practice and regulations to these episodes of low water levels, with sustainable solutions in line with the objective of zero-emission shipping by 2050. For this reason, MARIN and Rijkswaterstaat have launched a large-scale investigation on the prediction and modelling of sailing performance on fairways and rivers in order to assess current guidelines for under keel clearances and fairway dimensions.