Environmental aspects and indicators in ports.

Below, a set of projects related to ports and environment in which the main researchers of the group have participated is presented:

PORTOPIA (2013-2017) is an EC funded project that aims at developing a Service Cloud where European ports can administer their performance, based on selected performance indicators on different categories such as governance, market trends, environment, logistic chain and socio-economics.
PERSEUS (2012-2015) project, funded by EC, aimed at evaluating the dual impact of human activity and natural pressures on the Mediterranean and Black Seas. In this context, the research team studied the environmental impacts in the Mediterranean and Black Sea ports.
SIMDESPORTS (2011-2013) project, funded by AGAUR (Catalan Government), aimed at identifying the most appropriate Environmental Performance Indicators for Catalan and Welsh ports, since it was a collaborative project between the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and Cardiff University, located in the UK.
PPRISM (2010-2011) project had the goal of identifying a final set of indicators, both relevant and accepted by port stakeholders, which contribute to provide insight into the overall performance of the European port system on the society, environment and economy. In addition, this EC project was very useful to establish the culture of performance measurement in European ports (Puig et al., 2014).
PEARL (2005-2008) project, funded by EC, aimed at researching and improving the understanding of the environmental monitoring needs of European ports (Darbra et al., 2009). A ranking of the port’s environmental monitoring needs was developed, providing also an idea of the most required environmental indicators.
Port Safety Study in Australia and New Zealand (2005-2006). This project assessed the risk of port and reef barrier pilots when conducting their daily tasks and the potential risk for the environment if they fail in their duties. This project was conducted at Wollongong University (Australia) and funded by Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the Australian Maritime Pilots Association and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
Places of refuge for ships in distress (2004-2005) researched about the concerns on the regime and practice of the granting of refuge in a port or other safe haven (i.e. place of refuge) to a ship that is in need of assistance. This project started after the Prestige accident occurred in Spain in 2002. It was funded by the Sálens Foundation and the World Maritime University (Sweden). As a result of the conducted research a book was published entitled ‘Places of refuge for ships’.
ECOPORTS (2002-2005) project promoted the share of knowledge and experience between European ports in the field of the environmental management. It was funded by EC. The main goals of ECOPORTS were to harmonise the environmental management approach of port authorities in Europe, to exchange experiences in order to avoid double work and to implement best practices in respect of port-related environmental issues. Several tools were developed as a consequence of the ECOPORTS project, namely a methodology for identifying environmental risk and establishing priorities for action, entitled Self-Diagnosis Method (SDM) (Darbra et al., 2004); a methodology to identify environmental aspects in ports, called Strategic Overview of Significant Environmental Aspects (SOSEA) (Darbra et al., 2005); and a standard to achieve an Environmental Management System, named Port Environmental Review System (PERS). These tools are still available for use by port authorities.