Project

Increased preparedness for Swedish port regions

Active project

2024–2027

Project contacts

Karina Barquet / karina.barquet@sei.orgFrans Sjölander / frans.sjolander@sei.org

Sweden’s ports play an important role in the country’s transport, economy and crisis preparedness. Port regions must therefore increase their understanding of how they may be affected by climate change and strengthen their ability to address new societal changes and geopolitical threats.

This project examines the challenges that Swedish port regions face and provides concrete recommendations for solutions, including trade-offs for managing conflicting goals. The participating port regions will improve their planning capacity to be better able to design climate adaptation measures that strengthen society’s security and development. Increasing the preparedness of Swedish port regions is a collaboration between multiple actors and researchers. As part of the project, a climate service for ports is being developed to measure how the work on climate adaptation is progressing. Furthermore, the project will assess the risk of climate change causing negative domino effects on critical infrastructure and socially important activities. The results from the project will enable municipalities and port operators to develop more effective climate adaptation roadmaps.

Several research institutes are participating in the project and are leading different work packages that generate knowledge about how port regions can increase their preparedness.

Work package 1: Development of a climate service for port regions Responsible: Led by SEI with participation from RISE, SIWI, the Swedish Maritime Administration, the City of Malmö, Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP), the Port of Trelleborg, the Swedish Maritime Rescue Association and the Swedish Coast Guard.

Work package 1 will develop a climate service that helps port regions develop and follow up on climate adaptation plans and data for decision-making and investments. To make this possible, a current situation analysis of participating port regions and an external environment analysis will first be carried out.

Work package 2: Risk analysis and domino effects

Responsible: Led by SEI with participation from the City of Malmö, Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP), the Port of Trelleborg, the Swedish Coast Guard, the Swedish Maritime Administration and the Swedish Maritime Rescue Association.

Work package 2 will map the domino effects that may arise for critical infrastructure and socially important activities as a result of climate change. The project will build on a network-based method that was previously tested in Halmstad Municipality within the MSB-funded research project HydroHazards.

Work package 3: Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways

Work package 3 will identify possible courses of action for adapting port regions, considering several different goals, including safety, socio-economic conditions and climate goals. The work is based on the concept of Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP), which is used in planning and decision-making processes to manage complex and uncertain challenges related to climate adaptation.

Work package 4: Collaboration and promotion of marine awareness in port regions

Responsible: Led by RISE with participation from the Malmö Marine Education Center (MKC), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Malmö City, Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP), the Port of Trelleborg, the Swedish Sea Rescue Society, the Swedish Coast Guard and the Swedish Maritime Administration. Work package 4 forms the link between the project and the port regions. Here meetings, dialogue and knowledge exchange between various stakeholders take place.

Work package 5: Project management and communication

Responsible: Led by SEI in collaboration with all other partners. The work package will result in a final report, but the participants and the work packages will also report on their work during the course of the project.

The project is coordinated by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). The partnership also includes the Malmö Marine Education Center (MKC), the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), the Swedish Maritime Administration (SjöV) and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). In addition, the following stakeholders contribute time and knowledge: Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP), the Swedish Coast Guard, the City of Malmö, the Gotland Region, Visby Port, the Swedish Sea Rescue Society (SSRS) and the Port of Trelleborg. Overall, this involves a wide range of skills and stakeholders in many different activities. The project is linked to a reference group and there is also collaboration and knowledge exchange with other projects in the subject area. Contact the project for more information.