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Effects of Climate Change On the inland waterway and other transport NETworks (ECCONET)
Start date: Jan 1, 2010, End date: Dec 31, 2012 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The objective of this study is to gather the expertise of partners from different fields related to meteorology, hydrology, infrastructure operation, transportation and economics to assess the effect of climate change on the transport network, taking the inland waterway network as a case-study. The project is based on consolidation and analysis of earlier and existing research work as well as application of existing climate change and hydrological assessment tools for evaluation of climate change effects on the inland waterway transport (IWT) network. The development of new models is excluded from the study.During the project, cooperation and exchange of information is foreseen with other FP7 projects, namely EWENT and WEATHER. These projects are also focussed on the effects of extreme weather conditions on transport modes, but do not focus in particular on the IWT mode.The project initially evaluates 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 is 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 evaluation of the service quality of the baseline scenario, proper adaptation strategies for coping with possible climate change effects on inland waterway transport are identified and assessed. It is expected that these measures will improve the service quality of IWT even in the case of a changing climate.Final results contain projections of service quality, flows on the inland waterway network under climate change conditions, as well as cost-benefit assessments of possible adaptation strategies. The project provides essential information for decision makers and guidelines for future research on climate change and IWT.

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