Panama Canal Research Articles

Identifying key safety investments needed for arctic shipping via a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) approach

ABSTRACT The retreating ice coverage and reduced (ice) thickness scientifically recorded in the wider Arctic region, during the last few decades, are transforming it into a more accessible operating environment. Vessels engaged in maritime transport activities can now navigate the already established routes for more extended periods each year. With this background, Arctic shipping routes have attracted the interest of academics and maritime stakeholders because of the potential distance reduction compared to other existing (and often viewed as) conventional routes utilizing the Suez and Panama Canals today. However, the existing Arctic shipping environment requires specific future safety investments. This paper intends to provide input towards better-informed decision-making and identification of priority investments needed to improve the level of safety related to the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and Northwest Passage (NWP). A multi-attribute decision-making methodology, the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process, is applied to rank the various proposed safety investments. The results indicate that “infrastructure and facility” should come first, followed by “personnel,” “technology,” “measure,” and “management” investments. Ice monitoring and weather forecasting, strengthening Arctic seafaring expertise, and icebreakers stand out as the top three most important future investments required in the region.

A collaborative decision support framework for sustainable cargo composition in container shipping services

AbstractThis paper proposes a decision support system (DSS) for optimizing cargo composition, and resulting stowage plan, in a containership of a shipping company in collaboration with en-route ports in the service. Due to considerable growth in transportation over years, an increasing number of containers are being handled by containerships, and ports consequently. Trade imbalances between regions and recent disruptions, such as LA/LB/Shanghai port congestion, blocking of Suez canal, drought in Panama canal, typhoons at ports, COVID-19 restrictions and the lack- and then over-supply of empty containers, have resulted in an accumulation of containers in exporting ports around the world. These factors have underscored the urgency of sustainability and circular economy within the shipping industry. The demand for container transportation is higher than the ship capacities in the recent times. In this regard, it is essential for shipping companies to generate a cargo composition plan for each service by selecting and transporting containers with relatively high financial returns, while offering a realistic stowage plan considering ship stability, capacity limitations and port operations. Ultimately, the selected containers should enable a ship stowage plan which keeps the ship seaworthy obeying complex stability considerations and minimizes the vessel stay at the ports, and port carbon emissions consequently, through efficient collaboration with en-route ports. This study provides a bi-level programming based DSS that selects the set of containers to be loaded at each port of service and generates a detailed stowage plan considering revenue, stowage efficiency and quay crane operational considerations. Numerical experiments indicate that the proposed DSS is capable of returning high-quality solutions within reasonable solution times for all ship sizes, cargo contents and shipping routes, supporting the principles of the circular economy in the maritime domain.

Long memory of river streams in the canal of Panama watershed

Study region: It refers to the time series analysis of streamflow patterns in the six principal rivers of the Canal of Panama. Study focus: Using recent time series modeling techniques in fractional or I(d) frameworks, it offer an insight into the hydrology of the Panama Canal watershed. Objectives: The main objective is to determine if the river flows at the Canal of Panama watershed display long memory, and based on that, investigate if significant trends are present across time. Novelty: The use of updated time series techniques in the analysis of long memory and time trends in river flow data. New hydrological insights for the region: The results first indicate that long memory is present in all cases, with no significant trends whatsoever. While some series display evidence of seasonality, they are all mean-reverting. The implication of the results obtained is that climatological or hydrological shocks affecting these river streamflows may take a longer time to disappear.

Legal Aspects of the Kanal İstanbul from the Perspective of Its Unique Features

Abstract Canals, defined as artificial waterways, are built with the aim of providing shorter transit time, cheaper and safer maritime trade. However, in order for constructed canals to be used effectively, it is important to determine their legal status according to their features. The fact that Kanal İstanbul is planning to build parallel to the Bosphorus, which is the natural waterway, ensures that Kanal İstanbul has its own unique features due to its location. Considering the importance of the Turkish Straits, the Kanal İstanbul, could be convenient for transportation and freight and be a convenient waterway for world trade. In order to ensure the effective use of the Kanal İstanbul, its legal status must be established. This article discusses the legal statuses of the Suez, Panama, and Corinth Canals, which have changed over time, and the legal status of the Turkish Straits, which has evolved over history and continues today under the Montreux Convention. In this context, the possible legal statuses that can be applied to the Kanal İstanbul are exam-ined.

Shipping accident analysis in restricted waters: Lesson from the Suez Canal blockage in 2021

Global shipping flows through strategically important restricted waters such as Panama and Suez Canals, and hence accidents occurring in the Canals will cause serious disruptions to global supply chains. In this paper, a new data-driven Bayesian network (BN) based risk model is developed to investigate how risk factors jointly generate impact on different types of maritime accidents within restricted waters. A new risk database involving 25 factors has been developed by manual analysis of all the recorded accidents from 2005 to 2021 that occurred in the world's important restricted waters including key maritime canals, channels and straits. A data-driven BN model is constructed to analyse the key risk influential factors (RIFs) contributing to such accidents. The model is verified by sensitivity analysis and real accident cases. Further, it is tested by the already known information of the 2021 Suez Canal blockage case to generate useful insights and draw the lessons to learn. In a retrospective analysis using the currently available limited information on the Suez Canal case, the implication of the case study shows a plausible explanation for the observed findings by scenario analysis. The findings can be applied to backward risk cause diagnosis for accident investigation and forward risk prediction for accident prevention in restricted waters to avoid the reoccurrence of similar accident to the Suze Canal blockage.

UNDERSTANDING THE THERMAL COAL MOVEMENTS FROM COLOMBIA TO CHILE THROUGH THE PANAMA CANAL USING LOGIT MODELS- LOOKING AHEAD

This study attempted to specify logit models for bulkers transporting mostly thermal coal from the East Coast of Colombia to Chile through the Panama Canal compared to the alternative route. The preliminary proposed predictors for the logit models included voyage cost variables and Canal's attributes. For the route choice of coal from the East Coast of Colombia to Chile, voyage cost factors such as Panama Canal cost, distance difference between Panama versus alternative route, post arrival of vessel to the next port and the maximum transit draft were important factors in this choice, as well as Panama Canal attributes such as vessel arrivals at the Panama Canal and the Panamax Plus requirement to transit the neopanamax locks. The route choice involved the Panama Canal and Cape Horn/Magellan Strait in the Southern tip of South America. This study analyzed coal traffic between October 1, 2016, and September 30, 2020, and briefly discussed the future of coal movements through Panama, given Chile's long term plans to generate electricity using renewanable energy sources and hydrogen. This paper is a contribution to the discrete choice literature and attempted to provide insights into route choice factors involving the Panama Canal, proposing new preliminary explanatory variables to better understand route choices that may apply in future Panama Canal studies. The study will be a contribution to the universal maritime coal transportation literature, and it is a continuation on research related to the Panama canal, particularly on route choices using AIS information.

Credibility problem in the transport and logistics system of the Northern Sea Route and its solutions

This article aims to analyze the elements of the transport and logistics system of the Northern Sea Route. Some logistical aspects that have a significant impact on increasing the business community’s confidence in the commercial operation of this transport corridor and the prospects for its development compared with the logistics chain Europe (USA) – South-East Asia using the Suez and Panama canals were identified. The methodological basis of the study was a set of methods, heuristically and epistemologically justified by the work goals and objectives. First of all, a set of system analysis methods, which allowed a logically structured structure to provide the study’s results, was used. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the theoretical and practical justification of the choice of research methods. The results of the study led the authors to the conclusion that the transport and logistics system of the Northern Sea Route in the long term can increase its credibility in the business community and become a shorter route in the logistics chain Europe – Asia, but it will not make it more efficient than the current route across the Indian Ocean.

The noble mission of Nobel Laureate Sir Ronald Ross

The noble mission of Nobel Laureate Sir Ronald Ross

Estimating the emissions potential of marine transportation using the Kra Canal

The Panama and Suez canals greatly reduced pollutant emissions from shipping through much reduced sailing distances. Another possible future canal is across the Kra isthmus in Thailand, reducing sailing distances for ships travelling from East Asia to Europe that sail around the Malacca straits. Much literature considers the economic and political viability of the Kra Canal and notes the adverse environmental impact of the canal's construction. Yet, this literature also highlights the decarbonizing potential of the canal through reduced sailing distances and emissions. In this paper we critically consider this potential through the specific type of calculations in the study (ship emissions, etc.) and qualitative data consisting of the perspectives of experts (n = 20) from China (n = 5); Thailand (n = 5); Singapore (n = 5) and Taiwan (n = 5) gathered through semi-structured interviews. This data shows that, in fact, the canal might offer negative decarbonizing and emissions potential. This is due to a number of factors: the shorter reductions in sailing distances it affords compared to the Suez and Panama Canals; the economic models and political requirements to finance it, and; the currently available technologies. Nevertheless, the canal does offer potential for reducing distances and traffic in the Malacca straits if these factors change, and we outline and discuss these changes here.

War on Dirt: Aesthetics, Empire, and Infrastructure in the Low Nineteenth Century

AbstractThis essay considers the politico-aesthetics of infrastructure by focusing on poems that anticipate, justify, and critique internal improvements, from Joel Barlow’s early Republican vision of the Erie and Panama Canals to texts that document the ruin caused by the works Barlow imagined as glorious. Historical scholarship has long assessed the mania for cutting roads and canals into the landscape. But engaging an emerging infrastructuralism—and turning to imaginative texts that exist underneath the ground typically trod by US literary studies, from Philip Freneau’s celebratory ode to the Erie Canal to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ironic canal travel sketches to Margarita Engle’s recent historical verse-novel tallying the devastations of the Panama Canal—this essay identifies an infrastructural dialectic in which writers view infrastructure, initially, as awesome so as to justify its ecological and social violence and, subsequently, as banal so as to render it invisible within the settler state. Oscillating between awe and irritation, the sublime and the stuplime, then, these texts both expose the rhythm of infrastructure’s long—that is, low—relation to the structure of coloniality and, in Engle’s case, model how to disrupt it so as to imagine a more just life “after” infrastructure.

Tom and Thode’s excellent adventure: Practical guidance on surviving seedy bars, preparing for a DJ career, dismantling the U.S. Panama Canal zone, and other useful tips when working with towed acoustic arrays in the Eastern Tropical Pacific

Tom Norris used many acoustic tools in his research career, but it is safe to say that towed passive acoustic arrays were one of his specialties. In 1998 the National Marine Fisheries Service conducted the Stenella Population and Abundance Monitoring (SPAM) cruise. The NOAA ship Endeavor was to survey enormous dolphin populations in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP), starting from Lima, Peru, and ending in Panama City, Panama. Jay Barlow, one of my PhD thesis committee members, permitted me to participate in the cruise as a member of his towed array passive acoustic monitoring team. The first time I ever met Tom, the acoustics team leader, was when he was carrying a surfboard into his cabin, and I wondered how in the world he had managed to ship a surfboard into Peru. It was the first of many times I have enjoyed both working with and wondering about Tom, and our first trip together taught me practical things they forgot to teach in graduate school. Here, I will review Tom’s tips on Mackie mixer boards, buying drinks in dangerous bars, tracking dolphin whistles, not antagonizing visual observers, and liberating furniture from the U.S. Panama canal zone.

On the design of the gate seals of the new Panama canal locks

The paper describes the research that led to the detailed mechanical design of the J-shaped seals, which are currently mounted on the gates of the locks of the new Panama Canal. The research purpose was to provide a reliable and long lasting operation of the passive seal activation-deactivation mechanism, as well as a perfect watertight. In particular, the authors identified the operation principle of the seal, selected the suitable materials and designed the critical parts of the seal. The design was performed by means of simple analytical procedures whose accuracy has been confirmed by non linear stress–strain analysis, carried out on a very detailed finite element model.

A new wave of marine fish invasions through the Panama and Suez canals.

Recent engineered expansions of the Panama and Suez canals have accelerated the introduction of non-native marine fishes and other organisms between their adjacent waters. Measures to prevent further invasions through canals should be incorporated into global shipping policies, as well as through local efforts.

How Digitalization and IoT Can Improve the Operations of Panama Canal

The objective of this study was to review and investigate how data information systems are used to control operations and influence management decisions at the Panama Canal. It takes the view that the Panama Canal combines basic technology and complex systems to keep canal operations running safely and efficiently, and growing; ultimately keeping the Global economy in motion and profitable. From this perspective, it shows how ports around the world may look to the Panama Canal for solutions they can incorporate to remain relevant and competitive. This paper also discusses how the Panama Canal Authority utilizes legacy systems along with a wide variety of technology systems and equipment to collect data, and translate it into useful information that is used in planning and running day-to-day operations.

Importance of the Panama canal in the reduction of CO2 emissions from maritime transport

Gas and particle emissions from shipping as a consequence of the development of globalized international trade have become a cause for environmental concern. In this context, it is worthwhile to analyze any factors which may affect International Trade, and therefore Maritime Transport (MT). The expansion of the Panama Canal, which has enabled new possibilities for interoceanic connections, should be analyzed because of its impact on MT emissions. The impact of the Canal’s expansion on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions may be considered from a global perspective, analyzing how the expansion has affected ship emissions worldwide; or from a local perspective, analyzing the impact of these emissions on the geographic area in which the Canal is located, which is the Isthmus of Panama. Beginning with the expanded Canal’s (EPC) initial period of operation, this study develops a model and calculation methodology which make it possible to determine the impact of MT on GHG emissions. In addition, variations in local emissions from ships in the coastal regions of Panama are also analyzed.

Future precipitation changes over Panama projected with the atmospheric global model MRI-AGCM3.2

Future change in precipitation over Panama was investigated with 20-km and 60-km mesh global atmospheric models. The present-day climate simulations were conducted for 21 years from 1983 through 2003, driving models by observed historical sea surface temperatures (SST). The future climate simulations were conducted for 21 years from 2079 through 2099, driving models by future SST distributions projected by the Atmosphere–Ocean General Circulation Models that participated in the Fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. The uncertainty of future precipitation change was evaluated by ensemble simulations giving four different SST patterns and three different cumulus convection schemes. In the future, precipitation increases over the central and eastern part of Panama from May to November corresponding to the rainy season. Uncertainty of future precipitation change depends on cumulus convection schemes rather than SST distributions. Increase of precipitation over most regions can be attributed to the increase of water vapor transport originated in the Caribbean Sea which converges over Panama. Precipitation averaged over the Panama canal, the Gatun lake and related river basin (79.0°–80.5°W, 8.5°–9.5°N) will increase during most of the rainy season persisting from May to October, while precipitation in dry season persisting from December to April does not change in the future. Intense precipitation increases, but the possibility of drought increases. These results suggest that the planning of water resource management for the Panama canal may require some modifications in the future.

Unexpected systematic affinities and geographic expansion of a marine alien hydroid (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa)

Biological systematics provides taxonomic information and expertise for biogeography and biological invasion research and management. However, the systematic classification of most taxa, including some alien and invasive species, relies only on morphology. This applies for example to Sertularella tongensis Stechow, 1919 (Cnidaria: Sertulariidae), an alien hydrozoan recently reported in the Mediterranean. Its genus affiliation is still unclear and controversial. Historically, it has been assigned to several existing genera. However, molecular data (COI, 16S, 18S, 28S) provided here do not support these previous assignments. Instead, integrative analyses combining morphological and molecular data support reassigning this species to a new genus, Bicaularia gen. nov. A biogeographic review revealed that this species is widely distributed in the mid- and low-latitude waters of the Indo-Pacific region, and is spreading to some tropical and temperate regions including the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas, as well as Korea and Japan. This expansion may be attributable to human activity such as shipping through the Suez and the Panama Canals. However, the new record attached to a floating Sargassum algal fragment in the surface water of the open Pacific, might suggest a neglected cryptic spread pathway with the assistance of floating biological organisms. Our findings shed light on the complexity of the phylogeny and spread pathway of the investigated hydrozoan species. We regard the fine systematics as the first step towards future global sampling for molecular studies aiming to elucidate the origins and pathways for alien and invasive species.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org: pub: 45AB0849-1E3B-477FB643-1B3B4603C1FF

The Panama Canal Expansion and Its Impact on East–West Liner Shipping Route Selection

Through an empirical study of ocean-borne trade between Hong Kong and New York, we combined qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine route selection decisions in a post-expansion era of the Panama Canal. A two-stage methodological framework was developed to assess the competitiveness of the three route alternatives, namely the Panama and Suez canals and the US intermodal system. In the first stage, a combination of literature review and expert knowledge was employed to identify the determinants of route selection. In the second stage, fuzzy theory and the multi-criteria decision-making technique were used to evaluate the criteria and the route alternatives. The results indicate that transportation cost is the most important factor in choosing a route, followed by transportation time, reliability, and route characteristics. The “all water route” via the Panama Canal is preferred over the Suez and U.S. intermodal options.

Effects of the Expanded Panama Canal on Vessel Size and Seaborne Transport

The Panama Canal (PC) expansion will have an impact on trading patterns and the manner in which goods are transported around the world. Once the third set of locks at the Canal began their operation, it was clear that the way in which vessels transited the canal and their maximum dimensions were going to change. As such, the expanded Canal will undoubtedly mean that a new kind of vessel will come into existence. In terms of dimensions, these Neopanamax ships will be adapted to how the locks operate. However, this effect will not be the same across the full range of traffic. After the first transit on 26 June 2016, it was possible to obtain access to transit data for Neopanamax ships. A thorough statistical study of these new datasets would involve analysing how these new locks impact the vessel size and seaborne transport.

Geopolítica y petróleo en el Mar Caribe: la tensión entre Colombia y Nicaragua

La frontera entre Colombia y Nicaragua se presenta como un escenario dinámico, caracterizado por una tensión entre ambos países, a causa de su delimitación, comprende el archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina y el área adyacente en el mar Caribe occidental. Para resolver dicha controversia la Corte Internacional de Justicia en 2012 determinó que Colombia ejercía soberanía sobre el Archipiélago y delimitó nuevas fronteras en el mar, lo que modificó las áreas de usufructo de ambos países. Esta área se coloca en el panorama geopolítico global por dos motivos principales; primero su cercanía al canal de Panamá y al posible canal de Nicaragua, rutas estratégicas del comercio mundial, y segundo por el interés que ambos países demuestran en abrir concesiones de exploración/explotación de petróleo en el mar; en el marco de la crisis actual por la obtención de crudo, que se traduce en cambios del uso de las reservas de petróleo conocidas, las oscilaciones de los precios y los impactos socio-ambientales locales y globales generados por todas las etapas de aprovechamiento de este recurso. El presente artículo tiene por objeto discutir la vigencia de la exploración para la búsqueda de petróleo y su creciente interés en áreas offshore o fuera de costa, así como el análisis de las relaciones globales que se derivan.