This study integrates strategic decisions and operational control systems in autonomous shipping. By providing ships with situational information and adding a virtual operator, we show that vessels can make informed choices regarding their route and engine settings. To demonstrate this integration, we developed new components that were tested in three lab experiments. The 'green routing' experiment showed the bridge between the control system of the autonomous vessel, operated via Robot Operating System (ROS), to the simulation environment of OpenCLSim. We developed a real-time variant of OpenCLSim and a communication component that could expose the state of the OpenCLSim simulation with the ROS system. This experiment showed that the path provided by the simulation was followed by an autonomous vessel. The 'green steaming' experiment showed that the ship could also adapt its speed based on information from the simulations. We developed an additional communication component capable of advising the vessel about its velocity. Together with the green routing capability, this forms the basis for more complex experiments. The 'port call' experiment showed a potential use case of the green routing and green steaming capabilities. We created a waypoint layout similar to the port. While a ship is sailing, every five seconds, twelve simulations are computed. The scenarios vary in engine order, route choices, resulting in varying emissions, fuel, and cost. We evaluated the impact of different tactics such as green routing, green steaming, and full-speed sailing on operational behavior like steering and engine order. Our approach, using a real-time version of a Vessel in the OpenCLSim simulation software, enabled predictive simulations to facilitate the chosen tactic based on a given strategy. Integrating simulations to evaluate the options with the control systems can develop into a valuable tool for optimizing vessel performance and reducing environmental impact in autonomous shipping operations.

In order to increase safety and efficiency at sea the International Maritime Organization decided in 2000 that all sea going vessels were to implement Automatic Identification Systems (AIS). AIS is an automatic tracking system which broadcasts static and dynamic information about the vessel. Even though AIS was not initially designed for research purposes, large amounts of AIS data are available from which valuable insights can be gained. In this research an AIS Port processes tool is developed, which transforms (raw) AIS data into data containing information about the entry and exit times of certain port locations. With this tool and based on data analysis of multiple terminals, the inter arrival time distribution, the service time distribution and the berth occupancy can be obtained, these are key parameters for using Queuing Theory in terminal design. Following, these parameters and distributions can be compared to what current nautical infrastructure guidelines advise and expect. Insights gained from these AIS data analyses lead to innovative ideas and recommendations for current theoretical frameworks used in port planning.

Coastal zones all over the world have become heavily populated and developed due to the aesthetic value and diverse ecosystem services that they provide (Luijendijk et al. 2018). In recent years, however, climate change and anthropogenic pressures have exacerbated unprecedented coastal recession, threatening billions of dollars’ worth of coastal developments and infrastructure (Ranasinghe et al. 2012). In order to counteract the erosion trend and protect shoreline positions, it is necessary to carry out reliable assessments of shoreline dynamics to monitor the erosion process. Therefore, this thesis attempts to explain different spatial and temporal patterns of sandy shoreline evolution.The strict definition of shoreline is the physical land-water boundary (Boak & Turner 2005). However, considering the dynamic nature of water levels and the cross-shore and longshore sediment transport in the littoral zone, many coastal state indicators have been used as proxies to represent the ’true’ shoreline position for practical purposes (Boak & Turner 2005). The satellite derived shorelines (SDS), considered as a new type of coastal state indicator, provide a global shoreline dataset from 1984 to present. Hagenaars et al. (2017) stated that for long-time scales, similarities can be found between coastline dynamics based on the SDS positions and traditional indicators based on topographic measurements. Thus, for any coastal sandy stretch, time series of the SDS can be analyzed to get a first understanding of the coastline evolution in the period of 1984 – present.Three knowledge gaps are identified regarding using the SDS on unravelling shoreline dynamics:Does the time series of the SDS contain signatures of expected shoreline behaviour?To what extent is the limitation of the SDS important for unravelling shoreline dynamics? What is the application range of using the SDS for unravelling shoreline dynamics?The above knowledge gaps were addressed through the following steps. (1) We narrowed down the forcing types that would be focused on, including extreme storms, seasonal forcing, climate variability, land subsidence, sea level rise (SLR) and anthropogenic processes. (2) The shoreline changes at the eleven knowledge-intensive sites were focused on, each of which was selected based on the available documentation to verify if the influence of a specific forcing type could be unravelled through the SDS. The sites of interests include Narrabeen, Moruya and Pedro, Perranporth, Ocean Shores (CRLC), the Nile Delta, Perth, Ocean Beach, Fire Island, Gatseau sandspit and Cap Ferret sandspit (SW France), the Gulf of Valencia and Wrightsville Beach. (3) We decomposed the time series of the SDS with a range of data analysis methods, in order to extract spatiotemporal patterns of shoreline variation and correlate the variation patterns to forcing types at the eleven sites. (4) Three indices were calculated to classify rotational/non-rotational and seasonal/non-seasonal beaches based on the analysis results of the SDS. (5) The knowledge gaps were addressed through comparing the shoreline behaviour patterns derived from the SDS to the analysis within the related literature.We found that the spatiotemporal patterns of shoreline variation on the seasonal scale (due to seasonal forcing), inter-annual scale (due to climate variability) and decadal scale (due to land subsidence) extracted through the SDS are largely in line with the conclusions listed in the related literature, in which the dataset such as field measurements or video monitoring were used. Moreover, the influence of groins and beach nourishment projects on shoreline changes can also be clearly unravelled using the SDS. However, the SDS cannot be considered as the best solution to study shoreline variation governed by storms, considering the low frequency of satellite image acquisition and the influence of the image composite technique. Moreover, only using the SDS to assess the shoreline responses to SLR may not provide promising results, since the limited length of the record (over 30 years) make it hard to capture the influence of SLR on open coasts on long-term scales.To sum up, the SDS could be used as an ideal tool for unravelling coastline dynamics on seasonal, inter-annual and decadal scales governed by the seasonal forcing, climate variability and land subsidence, respectively. The shoreline changes caused by beach nourishment projects can also be clearly unravelled with the SDS. The introduction of new satellite missions can be expected in the near future, which helps to obtain an increasing temporal, spatial and spectral resolution of satellite images (Hagenaars et al. 2018). Therefore, it is highly possible that the SDS will become a more powerful tool for studying shoreline changes governed by extreme storms as time goes by. Furthermore, when the longer-recorded SDS are achieved in the future, it can be expected that the capabilities of using the SDS for studying the long-term shoreline variation governed by SLR will be improved.

During the last three decades, the Earth’s climate is changing rapidly, with higher average temperatures every year that leads not only to the melting of the ice sheet in the arctic and on most of the glaciers all over the world but also to extreme weather phenomena. The rise of the temperature can affect the Sea Surface Height (SSH) in more than one way, and since 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by the oceans, if the oceans are being affected then the whole Earth also is. The monitoring of the SSH can help the scientist predict the changes that will take place in the future. The SSH is a dynamic phenomenon that constantly changes not only within different decades but also from year to year, month to month even within the same day. These changes are the result of various phenomena and are called anomalies. When the SSH is monitored different phenomena are represented in different time scales and it is important to be taken into consideration if there is the need for a proper understanding of the SSH phenomenon. Many spatial data vendors are providing a large number of data-sets related to the monitoring of SSH and its anomalies and as a result, there is the need to find the most effective way to extract information from the data. Over the years has been established that one of the most effective ways to extract information from data is through the various visualization techniques and since the data of SSH is mainly spatial the main visualization technique is cartography. The advancements of the technology over the last couple of decades have led to a reality that the ”online” application is the norm and consequently the web mapping and web geographical information system (GIS). The goal of this thesis is to propose an architecture for a web GIS application that will be able to visualize dynamic data while adding elements of interactivity to improve the chances of the Sea Surface Height Anomaly (SSHA). IN order to achieve the goal of this thesis three main research questions need to be answered: What type of animation should be used (in order to visualize the passing of time), what interactivity elements should be added (e.g. zooming/panning in space and time) and what system’s architecture is optimal for such application (server-side/client-side etc.). This document is providing guidelines on how to create such an application and is resulting in the production of a prototype. The first part of this thesis is the review of the main ideas that are introduced in this project and how they were implemented by other researchers. Then, a comparison between the different implementation techniques (for every research question) is taking place to determine the main characteristics of the application. The final part is related to the implementation of the chosen techniques that lead to the development of the prototype application. The resulted prototype even though it is not perfect, due to technical limitations that were a consequence of implementing some of the most recent concepts in web development, is functional and paves the way for the development of new improved dynamic/interactive web GIS applications (https://giorgosdimo.github.io/MSc-Thesis/).