Assessing Dry Ports’ Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

Sustainable development and environmental issues related to ports and sea trade have highlighted the need to enhance transport and trade systems to include green practices, such as the realisation of dry ports. However, among the current studies investigating dry ports’ implications, only few papers explore their environmental impacts. Moreover, these latter papers approach the argument in a general way, leaving the ecological concerns associated with dry ports under-researched or marginally explored. In light of these premises, with the present review, the authors aim to develop a new conceptual framework on the dry ports’ environmental aspects in order to drive and support future academic research in this field. The methodology used by the authors is a systematic literature review on Scopus and Web of Science. They identified 107 relevant articles, of which 43 were included according to the authors’ propositions. The main results show that (i) there is no coordination between the various studies and systemic debates on dry ports’ environmental aspects; (ii) there are no standardised applicable tools; and (iii) there is no involvement among the various stakeholders. Additionally, a debate is also lacking under the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030.

Disclosure of the sustainable development goals in the maritime industry and port sector

“…In the study by Varese et al (2022), a conceptual framework was developed, with the aim of investigating state of the art related to the assessment of environmental sustainability in dry ports, boosting the development of future research in this area. Through a systematic literature review, this conceptual framework was proposed.…”

“…Regarding SDG 14, several studies have comprehensively addressed the topic (Ahmad et al, 2020;Al Amien et al, 2020;Balić et al, 2021;Bank et al, 2021;Beleya et al, 2020;Cavalli et al, 2021;D'Amico et al, 2021;Di Vaio et al, 2022;Kandasamy et al, 2021;Kitada et al, 2017;MacNeil et al, 2022;Poland, 2020;Varese et al, 2022;Vega-Muñoz et al, 2021;. Only six papers highlighted direct applications related to SDG 14, as in Ahmad et al (2020), in which the environmental dimension was identified as a key factor in developing a green marina.…”

“…Recent studies deal with SDG 13 (Balić et al, 2021;Beleya et al, 2020;Caliskan, 2022;Cavalli et al, 2021;Del Giudice et al, 2022;Di Vaio et al, 2022;Kandasamy et al, 2021;Kitada et al, 2017;Lima & Souza, 2022;MacNeil et al, 2022;Poland, 2020;Taneja et al, 2021;Varese et al, 2022;Vega-Muñoz et al, 2021;. It is essential to point out that most of these studies belong to the group of articles related to SDG 14, differing only from four.…”

“…And Taneja et al (2021) highlighted using renewable energy, temporary drainage systems, electrified transport and machinery and hydrogen as dredging fuel for GHG reduction and contribution to SDG 13. Regarding SDG 9 (Al Amien et al, 2020;Beleya et al, 2020;Caliskan, 2022;Cavalli et al, 2021;Cerreta et al, 2020b;D'Amico et al, 2021;MacNeil et al al., 2022;Nitsenko et al, 2017;Poland, 2020;Taneja et al, 2021;Varese et al, 2022; discussed the theme, only the groups mentioned above studies by Cerreta et al (2020b) and Nitsenko et al (2017). The latter stressed that for an effective contribution to SDG 9 it is necessary to propose a business model based on a quality infrastructure that supports economic development and investment in research and innovation in developing countries.…”

Application of a fuzzy multi-criteria decision framework for safety-critical maritime infrastructure evaluation

“…Several studies have documented the importance of MCDM techniques in addressing issues in the maritime industry [ [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] ]. Risk management in seaports is one field where MCDM techniques have been used to generate information to improve decision-making.…”