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Cross Impact Analysis in Strategic Dredging Management
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Seyede Masoome Sadaghi    , Hoda Fasihi Karami , Mona Moghaddam |
| Road, Housing & Urban Development Research Center , S.sadaghi@bhrc.ac.ir |
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Abstract: (73 Views) |
Background and Objectives: Maritime transportation plays an important role in the development of trade due to advantages such as low cost and high volume of cargo handling. Therefore, creating the necessary conditions for the development of maritime transportation is of high strategic and economic importance. Ensuring maritime safety is an inherent duty and requirement of international maritime conventions for port countries and in this regard, dredging operations are carried out by countries to provide and maintain sufficient depth in waterways and ports. In addition to the necessity of dredging for ensuring maritime safety, dredging operations and increasing the depth of waterways are also of great importance for the commercial and economic development of countries. Nowadays, in the maritime industry, considering the global approach to economies of scale, large ships are used to reduce cargo transportation costs. Therefore, ensuring sufficient depth for the navigation of large vessels has become an important factor in the competitiveness of ports. Consequently, port dredging operations have a role beyond a governmental duty in ensuring the safe passage of ships and are considered as a fundamental requirement for increasing the share and position of countries in the maritime transport industry, requiring long-term management and planning to achieve strategic goals in the commercial and economic development of countries. In Iran, there are various challenges in carrying out dredging operations, especially in maintenance dredging. Increasing productivity and reducing operational challenges require a comprehensive and long-term planning approach. Since the main indicator of a long-term strategic plan is comprehensiveness, identifying effective factors related to port dredging operations and analyzing the impact and susceptibility of each factor are fundamental components. Therefore, this article attempts to identify and determine effective, influential, and dependent factors in the issue of port dredging using the structural analysis method.
Methods: The present study, is practical in terms of purpose. Initial data collection, was conducted using an online questionnaire and open-ended interviews with authorities and experts in the field of dredging. The extracted topics and challenges of dredging were categorized in final Delphi sessions into 5 categories and ultimately, influential and critical factors in the issue of port dredging were identified and determined by using the method of cross impact analysis and the MICMAC software.
Findings: The cross-impact analysis shows that the legal and contractual issues as well as human resources are among the most effective factors on dredging management, which have the least dependency on other factors, and as the most critical indicators, the system status and changes are highly influenced by them. "Technical-engineering improvement of dredging operations" is also another effective factor in the system, which can play a key role in the system's performance in the short-term and long-term. On the other hand, the most important outputs of the system (factors with the highest dependency) are "maintaining the safety of ports and waterways" and "continuity and development of maritime trade", which are very sensitive to the evolution of the influential and dual variables. "Control and reduction of negative dredging impacts" has also been identified as a highly dependent factor belonging to system outputs.
Conclusion: Identifying the issues that have the greatest impact on improving the efficiency of dredging operations and at the same time have a high degree of modifiability, helps the authorities and stakeholders to have appropriate prioritization of the issues and challenges ahead and plan the allocation of capital and time to solve them based on the main priorities. |
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| Keywords: Dredging, Management, Cross-impact analysis, MICMAC |
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Type of Study: Research/ Original/ Regular Article |
Subject:
Management (Environment, Coastal Zone,...)
Received: 2024/07/10 | Revised: 2024/11/21 | Accepted: 2024/11/5
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