The Port Authority of Valencia, the Valenciaport Foundation, the port community and Puertos del Estado start the work of the Climate Change Observatory

It is part of the SAMOA project, a system for consulting meteorological and oceanographic information for port authorities.

 The Port Authority of Valencia), the Valenciaport Foundation and Puertos del Estado organized a meeting with members of the port community who are part of the Ecoport project, the Directorate General of the Merchant Navy and Maritime Rescue to continue working on the Climate Change Observatory. This Observatory is an initiative led by the APV, which aims to monitor the evolution and impacts of climate change on port operations and infrastructures in the ports of Valencia, Sagunto and Gandía.hain disruptions as a result of COVID-19 and the Black Sea conflict have raised awareness of the importance of maritime transport in the local economy and in the quality of life of citizens. Improving the resilience of port infrastructures to the effects of climate change is therefore crucial for the proper functioning of the national economies they support. The ability of ports to anticipate, prepare for, respond to and recover from the impacts of extreme weather events is crucial, and requires investment in risk management and response preparedness coordinated with the entire port community.

The session focused on defining the characteristics of the tool that will support the observatory and will be part of SAMOA, a system for consulting meteorological and oceanographic information for port authorities. The objective is for the companies to define what information can be useful to them and how they need the tool to display this information. To this end, the results of the European project ECCLIPSE – Evaluation of climate change in ports of Southwest Europe -, recently completed and whose main objective was to analyze the impact of climate change on ports, developing tools and early prediction models that allow a deep understanding of its impact at local level, have also been taken into account.

In this regard, Federico Torres, head of Ecological Transition of the PAV, stressed that “safeguarding the integrity of the maritime transport chain is an imperative for sustainable development. The ECCLIPSE project has made it possible to identify the vulnerabilities and strengths of the ports managed by Valenciaport and to prepare an action plan that guarantees the continuity of the activity, improving risk management capabilities. It is not only necessary to be prepared to face the threats that are consequence of the climatic change, but also it is necessary to be attentive to the opportunities that the new situation offers”. “In particular – it has continued – the results of the ECCLIPSE project allow the PAV to improve the planning of traffics and port infrastructures. They also constitute a fundamental support to the deployment of renewable energies that the PAV has initiated and that will allow to be energetically self-sufficient and to consolidate the sustainable growth of the infrastructure, and therefore, of the Valencian industry”.

Within the framework of this project, co-financed by the Interreg-Sudoe program, the PAV and the Valenciaport Foundation, together with Puertos del Estado and the Foundation for Climate Research, worked on the development of a strategy to adapt the ports of Valencia, Sagunto and Gandia to the effects of climate change. More specifically, a common methodology was defined for analyzing the impacts of climate change and its effects on the maritime port environment, developing predictive models of the effects of climate change at the local level. In addition, and in close collaboration with the port community, the potential impacts of climate change on port operations and infrastructures were analyzed.

The Strategic Framework of the Port System of General Interest sets as one of its strategic objectives to contribute to the adaptation to climate change. In cooperation with Puertos del Estado, and with the support of the Valenciaport Foundation, the APV is defining its adaptation plan with this Climate Change Observatory. This is a pilot experience that will serve as a starting point to replicate the methodology and knowledge generated in the rest of the ports of general interest. This initiative will be part of ECOPORT’s activities.

The meeting, held in hybrid format, online and face-to-face, was attended by top-level expert speakers: Mercedes de Juan Muñoyerro, Head of Projects of the Valenciaport Foundation and coordinator of the ECCLIPSE Project; Begoña Pérez, Head of Physical Environment, and Antonio Góngora, Deputy Director of Connectivity, Sustainability and Physical Environment of Puertos del Estado.

SAMOA, Port Authority Meteorological and Oceanographic Support System, is a project co-financed by the Port Authorities and Puertos del Estado, which aims to provide ports with customized oceanographic and meteorological information consultation and exploitation systems.

The main objective of the project is to provide each Port Authority with customized ocean-meteorological information adapted to their needs. The service consists of various modules (improved instrumentation and new forecasting systems), which are accompanied by value-added systems that allow a better exploitation of the information.