Hydrogen is expected to be a significant force in this transition. Hydrogen can be produced using technologies that do not emit CO2 or other greenhouse gasses (“green H2”). Hydrogen can be transported in big quantities and long distances unlike electricity and can play the role of a clean fuel. The emerging hydrogen economy, which will be accompanied by the gradual phase-out of fossil fuels, will significantly impact ports around the world. Ports can and should play a pivotal role in this “energy revolution”. Apart from import and export services, ports often include industrial clusters, they provide servicing and refuelling to visiting vessels and connect major trade routes. This study aims at understanding and providing insights on challenges that the above-explained transition will create in a port environment focusing on hydrogen. Firstly, a favourable policy environment for hydrogen projects in the ports and maritime sector is a key topic that this study will address. This is included as a conclusion in many reports and port conferences. Secondly, the questions related to terminal planning and area requirements of hydrogen terminals remain unanswered as large scale hydrogen projects do not exist yet -with many being under development-, and thus this research will try to shed light on area calculations of hydrogen terminals. Thirdly, and lastly, terminals operators, investors and policy makers will need to make decisions on the preferred hydrogen carrier and location for various hydrogen projects that will be developed in the near future. Therefore, a method of comparison of different alternatives is required, especially when terminals are planned next to existing liquid bulk terminals.

As a result of the need for higher productivity ship-to-shore container cranes, seven concepts are composed that can simultaneously transfer 4 Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit containers. All concept can be built on a standard ship-to-shore crane structure. These concepts are based on working principles found in (patent) literature. The concepts are compared based on multiple objectives, after which one concept is chosen to realize a concept design. A ship-to-shore crane with two trolleys turns out to be the most suitable concept. The two trolleys consist of a rope towed trolley and a semi rope trolley, which are combined with a continuous rope support system. The design of the trolleys is based on an existing trolley. For all wire ropes to run adjacently, the sheave diameters and positions on both trolleys deviate from the existing trolley. The sheave positions have consequences for the trolley frame design. To validate the adjusted trolley frames, a finite element analysis is performed.

To continue the success of the Port of Rotterdam (PoR) in the future, a transition to a sustainable industry is essential. Though this is easier said than done. The energy transition involves a variety of initiatives which are at the same time highly dependent on each other. Whilst the increasing scarcity of available area and resources result into the situation that a decision will have to be made. As long as this decision is not made, it leads to high uncertainty on which activities are going to take place in the PoR and at which point in time they are expected. To support the decision making on which activities to should focus on, there is an urgent need for a decision tool at the PoR authority. The main conclusion, however, is that it is impossible to develop a decision tool which is able to make a choice among different activities. This decision is impossible because every activity has its own demands and requirements and differs in the contribution it has to the strategic goals. Besides this, the set requirements cannot be expressed in a single unit, leading to the situation that a comparison cannot be judged. Following from the above, it is being discouraged to develop a decision tool. The allocation process and the involved requirements are too versatile to be simplified in a single tool. If such a simplification is made, this will result in missing essential opportunities and potential bottlenecks in the sequential project phases. Based on the above conclusions, it is investigated whether it is possible to provide the PoR authority with guidelines that support the comparison of different activities. To do so, the involved requirements in the allocation process are substantiated. These requirements are evaluated from three different points of view: demand side (client), resources side (Port of Rotterdam authority) and their priority in the decision making. By means of the evaluation, the aspects have been identified that must be implemented into the guidelines. In addition to the requirements, it is important for the PoR authority to incorporate its communicated strategy into the daily activities. To do so, the commercial strategy has been developed. At first sight, the integration of the commercial strategy is not acknowledged to be a requirement in the allocation process. Though, as the research proceeded, it turned out that the commercial strategy has a more important role in the decision making than anticipated. Resulting in the situation that if the PoR authority is really looking to fulfil its climate targets, the commercial strategy should function as a self-contained requirement in the allocation process. From the conclusions, the recommendation for the PoR authority is to develop a central team that involves the experts of the relevant requirements to judge the potential activities. This team will have the primary task to evaluate and judge the potential activities prior to entering the project phases. The judgement of the potential activities will be founded on four main themes for evaluation: demand, supply, priority and contribution to the commercial strategy. Though, this recommendation is not aimed at making the decision itself. The main focus is to supply the evaluations on the potential activities to the decision makers. The decision itself will be based on the supplied evaluations through which a decision can be made on which activities should be allocated in the PoR.

The world population is growing and therewith facing a lot of problems, such as a growing energy demand and climate change. These problems force society to make a transition, from a system driven by fossil raw materials to a sustainability-based system. Hydrogen can play a part in shifting from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy flows, as a renewable energy carrier, to decrease the CO2 emissions. However, the major obstacle of hydrogen use is the low volumetric energy density at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Therefore, hydrogen must be compressed, liquefied or attached to a carrier to use it for storage or transportation purposes. The most cost-effective method to import hydrogen is yet unknown, and therefore a better understanding of the costs of the hydrogen supply chains are essential. The objective of this research is to: (1) understand the different costs for each individual element of the supply chain, (2) design a hydrogen supply chain that integrates the individual elements into a single framework to be able to compare the different carriers to each other and (3) create a more profound perspective on the investment decisions for a hydrogen import terminal. A case study for the port of Rotterdam is performed to validate the operation of the general supply chain for a specific case, resulting in a more in-depth understanding of the import terminal. This research covers four hydrogen carriers: ammonia, MCH, liquid- and gaseous hydrogen. The answer for objective one, is that for ammonia and MCH the import terminal costs are the highest, for liquid hydrogen the conversion plant costs and for gaseous hydrogen the transport costs. The hydrogen costs for ammonia, MCH and liquid hydrogen decreases as long as the demand increases, up until an amount of 500,000 t/y, whereby for gaseous hydrogen this decline holds for values beyond this amount as well. In general, for distances up to 3,500 nm gaseous hydrogen is preferred and for intermediate to long distance ammonia. The discrepancy in costs between ammonia, MCH and liquid hydrogen is almost negligible. Regarding the second objective, it can be stated that it makes no difference when choosing one carrier, or the other at ammonia, MCH and liquid hydrogen for intermediate to long distances. To conclude, the optimal hydrogen import supply chain for the estimated demand of Rotterdam is obtained from gaseous hydrogen exported from Tunisia with a cost price of 2.3 €/kg.

Sediment management is necessary to keep the Waal navigable. Sediment management in the Waal is carried out by both dredging and plowing of the river bed. By analysing historic data available at Rijkswaterstaat, the relation between the hydrograph and the amount of required dredging and plowing is investigated. Also the influence of the hydrograph on dredging and plowing locations are investigated. The locations of dredging and plowing are placed into context of the river geometry. The different results for dredging and plowing are compared to each other and substantiated.

Due to the increase of global containerized trade and container vessel sizes, the necessity of container terminal development is unavoidable. On the other hand, designing a container terminal is a very complex process, and on a concept design phase, a quick assessment for the design alternatives should be done in a limited time, cost, and effort. Therefore, an automated tool is developed by (Koster, 2019) to ease and accelerate the work of the engineers. However, further development is required for the automated tool, especially for the layout generation tool to also consider area limitations. This research aims to answer the research question: ‘How can a container terminal be designed in the concept design phase while taking into account area limitations?’. The premise is answered by developing an automated tool (i.e. design tool) for container terminal design that consider not only terminal throughput and design rules for the main input but also terminal shape and dimensions. The algorithms implemented within the design tool will correspond for at least four tasks: recognizing the terminal shape and dimension as the boundary condition, modifying container block configuration (either by enlarging/reducing its size), generating the container blocks, and determining the desired output. After the design tool is developed, it will be validated using case studies from existing terminals by comparing several validation parameters: terminal layout, terminal capacity, the number of blocks, blocks configuration, stacking density and stacking orientation. Other than that, the design tool is also reviewed by using three types of applicability: design alternatives for all types of equipment, element calculation & cost estimation from all design alternatives, and changing throughput demand. In this thesis, we can find the development and validation of the design tool that will give us the answer to the main deliverables of a concept design phase. The design tool is capable of presenting container terminal design alternatives and comparing the layout, elements, land use, cost, and capacity for 4 main types of stacking equipment: RTG, RMG, SC, and RS. This would be very beneficial for container terminal stakeholders, not only for determining which one is the most effective and efficient stacking equipment (which depends on the main objective of the terminal; e.g., lower land use, higher throughput, least labour cost, more sustainable, etc.), but also for getting information of main deliverables at the concept design phase: land use and cost. Other than that, this thesis will also show the design tool’s capability of generating different container terminal design for varying throughput demand and providing information on whether the container terminal has reached its area capacity or not. All of these are resulted from the process of an automated tool, making the design process faster and better, which will be very meaningful in this era of continuous uncertainty. All in all, area limitations have a significant influence in the container terminal design process since it is closely related to container block configuration, which also related to the terminal capacity, land use, and costs. Area limitations will also make the design process even more complicated; and thus, the design tool that has been developed in this thesis for generating container terminal design alternatives is one of the answers in solving the problem.

In the early project phase, decisions are made when considering a port basin berth layout that affects the outcome and the success of the project. In order to make a decision regarding the berth layout, port planners create a set of variants for comparison and assessment in order to pick the basin berth layout that suits the project goals the best. The selected basin berth layout is the preferred variant that will be used to eventually be realised. However, since the decision in the early project phase has a great influence on the entire project, port planners want to improve the decision-making for selecting the best berth layout. This research aims to improve the decision-making process for selecting the berth layout of preference by developing a design generation method for berth layouts and its respective pathway. This method might give insights into optimal berth layout configurations and its pathway in order for decision-makers to assess their preferred variant resulting from the set of variants developed by experts and the generated layout. After the method is developed, the method is tested on conceptual benchmark cases and a real case in order to assess whether such method can add value, or improve, design solutions of port basin layouts during the early project phase. Although limited studies and methods exist that have resemblance or commonalities with berth layout optimisation, the idea is in its infancy. Methods for berth layout optimization have been developed to generate berth layouts and its re spective pathway through the basin in this report. The optimization is separated into two steps: firstly, berth location optimization using a pre-defined central basin pathway, and secondly, optimization of the pathway belonging to the respective berth layout. The separation of the berth location and pathway optimisation reduces computational time. The heuristic berth location optimization optimizes the locations of the berths to minimize the central pathway dredging, while satisfying constraints prescribing a minimal distance between the berths. After the berth locations are optimized, the pathways can either be optimized by means of a heuristic pathway approach, or by means of an exact mathematical pro gramming approach, both of which are developed in this research. The heuristic pathway optimization approach models required dredging by translating the dredging for a berth into a graph with weighted edges and then sequentially defining the route that requires the least dredging per berth, eventually forming the complete basin pathway. The exact pathway approach uses a mathematical programming setup. The methods are applied to conceptual benchmark cases a real-life case. The benchmarks differ in basin dimensions, basin bottom profile, and fleet characteristics. The real-life case concerned the Scheurhaven, which is a small port basin for mainly tugboats. The layout of the Scheurhaven had to be adapted to fit more tugboats in the basin. The Scheurhaven case was optimised with the heuristic approach, due to the potentially large computational time of the exact approach. As the berth locations were limited and the method lacked features to make the design comparable, such as structures and berth geometry, only heuristic pathway optimisation was done.

To facilitate the energy transition, effective collaboration among all stakeholders is necessary. However, there is currently a lack of understanding regarding the impact of different components in the value chain on the energy system's overall structure and the final energy price. This knowledge gap poses a significant obstacle to cooperation and progress in the energy transition. It creates the risk that effort goes into developing certain partial solutions when they may not be feasible from a larger system perspective. By focusing on their own component, stakeholders do not fully take into account the needs and interests of others involved. As the development of green hydrogen projects is in its early stages, it is important to think in terms of systems. Stakeholders should establish an ecosystem where players operating in different parts of the value chain are collaborating together. This helps to de-risk projects, share lessons and promote the development of innovative, first-mover initiatives. This study aims to develop a standardised method to evaluate offshore wind to hydrogen concepts through a techno-economic analysis. This analysis method combines technical analysis with economic evaluation of projects and concepts to determine the potential economic outcomes and impacts of implementing a particular technology or project. Through stakeholder interviews, the study found that stakeholders in the offshore wind and hydrogen market have distinct objectives and concerns. Key factors influencing their willingness to contribute include confidentiality, competition, and reputation. To increase the transparency of the model, it was developed in Python. A standard notation system was developed, which was presented alongside the model's results. This should aid in the understanding of the underlying assumptions.

Ports are located in deltas and dynamic coastal regions with large loads of fine sediment. Ports also enhance the import of marine sediment by channel and basin deepening. This results in the need for extensive maintenance and sediment management. Finding an effective and efficient sediment man­agement strategy is difficult. This research dives into the current sediment management approaches and innovations to develop a decision-­making approach to find the most suitable and sustainable sed­iment management strategy for a port. There are several ways to optimize the sediment management in a port. With the principle to con­ sider sediment as a value resource to the port and the coastal system, rather than a waste, the sediment management hierarchy is obtained. This hierarchy consists of Prevent and Reduce, Recycle and Reuse and Disposal to find a sustainable sediment management strategy. Various Prevent and Reduce and Recycle and Reuse examples and methods are analysed in this research to identify their potential for sustainable sediment management. Furthermore, based on literature study, expert interviews and a workshop at Arcadis input is generated to propose a decision­-making approach. This research devel­ops an approach and a tool considering all the aspects of sediment management and for assessing potential strategies for sediment management in a port. The decision­-making approach considers four steps to find a sediment management strategy. The first step, sediment management objectives, defines the objectives of the stakeholders for the strategy. In the second step, fit to case, all the sediment management methods are considered and the potential strategies are defined. The third step, assessment of potential strategies, assesses the performance of each strategy with performance indicators in the decision­-making tool. The performance indicators are selected based on the assessment categories and objectives. In the final step, meeting the objectives, the most suitable strategy is proposed and described for the long-­term sediment management in the port. This approach supports the process to optimize sediment management in a port. The proposed decision-­making approach is applied and further developed with a case study on Porto Amboim. Porto Amboim is a port on the west coast of Angola. The port operates for the offshore industry and is currently experiencing sedimentation problems. The northward directed natural long­ shore sediment transport is interrupted by the port’s breakwater, resulting in sedimentation around the breakwater and at the lee side of the breakwater. This interruption disturbs the sediment balance in the region causing erosion problems at the down drift side of the port. The decision­making approach and tool are used to find a potential sediment management strategy for Porto Amboim. This potential strat­egy for Porto Amboim uses a sediment trap to manage the sediment in the region, ensuring sufficient port operations and restoring the sediment balance along the coast. In order to use the approach in a generic way the results are reflected upon and a validation on the approach is performed. The reflection showed some uncertainties and limitations to the approach and tool because of the available information on the case. However, still two suitable strategies have been obtained for Porto Amboim. In the validation the approach has been applied on a second case study. This validation showed the potential for generic use of the decision-making approach and tool for sediment management. From the reflection and validation can be concluded that the available information determines the level of detail of the assessment of the potential strategies. The main objective of this study was to explore the potential dredging and sediment management strategies to optimize sediment management in the port towards more sustainable methods, develop a decision-­making tool and apply the tool in a specific case study. From this research the following can be concluded, the decision­-making approach is considered a suitable approach to find a sediment management strategy for a port. All aspects of sediment management are considered and assessed. Therefore, further development of the tool and innovations in more aspects of sediment management are recommend. Yet, this research, the approach, and the innovative methods for sediment manage­ ment show a great potential for more sustainable maintenance strategies in the future.

Recently, pressure on port authorities to improve port efficiency is increasing due to port competitiveness. Multiple activities within a port influence the efficiency of a port. In this research, the processes of the 'nautical chain' are considered. The nautical chain consists of piloting by a pilot, positioning by tugboats and (un)mooring by boatmen. The provided services are dependent on each other, which makes information sharing between the actors of the nautical chain essential. Enhancing information sharing in the nautical chain could provide opportunities for efficiency improvements. However, current literature does not provide any details on information sharing in the nautical chain. Consequently, it is unknown what parts of the information sharing might be crucial to focus on for improving its efficiency. This research aims to fill this gap, by researching the information that is shared in the nautical chain of the Port of Rotterdam in the delays that frequently occur through expert interviews and observations. The information that is shared in the frequent delay situations is considered critical for efficiency improvements, because the shared information contributes to decisions that reduce the cascade effect of a delay trigger. Following from the identified information sharing in the frequent delays, the areas of critical information sharing are distinguished.

As an Indonesian national strategic project, the Port of Kuala Tanjung draws significant attention at national and international level. Considering the semi-greenfield nature of the port, the diverse set of stakeholders, and the prevailing disruptive trends in the world port business enabled mainly by digitalization and energy transition, a robust 1st phase port layout is required to kick-start the project and guarantee the overall sustainability of the port development. This thesis is conducted on the Port of Rotterdam Authority (PoRA) which is a part of the Joint Venture company that is responsible in developing the Port of Kuala Tanjung. The author would like to clearly state that while this study is conducted during the author's internship at Port of Rotterdam, the views expressed in this paper are those of the author alone and not the Port of Rotterdam Authority.. The objective of this research is to develop an adaptive port masterplan along with its robust 1st phase layout which is self-sustainable and provide catalyzing effect for the next stage of development. A modified Adaptive Port Planning (APP) framework will be used as the main methodology in this research. In addition, the United Nation Sustainable Goals is being used as a guiding principle in planning the port. A combination of a literature review and interviews with experts are used to both identify the sources of the uncertain and disruptive trends mentioned above and also to propose adaptation strategies. As a conclusion, an adaptive port masterplan has been developed. A circular economic concept combined with industrial port complex model has been applied to the port to incorporate self-sustainability and catalyzing effect element into the port. To validate the research products, series of interviews and FGD has been conducted with Port of Rotterdam Authority experts.

The aim of the Building with Nature (BwN) design philosophy is to improve on a traditional approach for infrastructural projects by utilising natural processes to create benefits for society and nature. In a fast-changing world where climate action is becoming increasingly important, there is need for an innovative approach in large infrastructural projects where nature is not considered as an obstacle, but stimulated and used in a sustainable way. The BwN design philosophy offers the opportunity to realize this improvement. This research first aimed to create an evaluation framework of (international) standards and goals to identify opportunities for improvement of a port masterplan and to get a better understanding of the need for sustainable port development. Included in this evaluation framework are, amongst others, the Port Vision2030, the Corporate Social Responsibility statement and the international strategy of the Port of Rotterdam (PoR). On the basis of these visions and standards, the corporate governance of the PoR was tested by conducting an informal opinion poll amongst twenty colleagues at the PoR (International, Environmental Management and Port Development). A practical example of a traditional port development project that can be improved by applying BwN is the Kuala Tanjung (KT) Port-Industrial complex at Sumatra, in Indonesia. This port development project is still in its initiation phase where a first master plan is proposed. Since the goal of the Indonesian government is to build a world-class port, international and sustainable standards apply. This project was used as a case to identify opportunities to improve a traditional master plan by applying a BwN approach. The evaluation framework was applied to the current master plan of KT to check whether this project meets the requirements for international port development, in particular from a nature/social point of view. It is concluded that the current design mainly focuses on the functional requirements of the port, proposing mitigation and compensation measures against the negative social and environmental impact of the port development. The BwN philosophy, on the other hand, prescribes a thorough understanding of the natural system emphasizing on the positive effects of the project for stakeholders and nature, to create a win-win solution. After applying the general evaluation framework, it became clear what aspects in the current master plan should be improved. A literature study of applied BwN solutions resulted in an onshore and offshore alternative for the port development including several BwN solutions. Together with experts involved in the KT project, it is concluded that the onshore alternative is more realistic (from a functional point of view), while still offering opportunities for applying the BwN philosophy. In the current natural system of KT the mangroves offer various important ecosystem services. In addition, it is concluded that the breakwaters proposed by the current master plan form a large part of the CAPEX. Consequently, a solution is proposed where mangroves are integrated in the design to attenuate waves and enhance nature at the same time. To test whether this BwN solution is realistic, a preliminary feasibility study has been executed. The results of a mangrove coastal protection program at Demak (Java, Indonesia) and various scientific articles (Ecoshape BwN Guidelines, 2018) about rehabilitation programs for mangroves have been used to set up a general checklist with habitat requirements for mangroves. These requirements were compared with the local conditions at KT and recommendations for creating these conditions at the breakwater location were given. According to the checklist, the site at KT appeared to be suitable for mangrove establishment. This resulted in preliminary mangrove breakwater designs for various depths. In addition, the effect of the BwN solution on the phasing of the adapted master plan was determined, rough cost estimates were made and the implementation risks were identified. According to these conditions, the mangrove-based breakwater appeared to be technically feasible for the first 2000 m of the shallow part of the south-eastern breakwater at KT. Finally, the evaluation framework was applied again to check if the current master plan of KT has been improved (read: less dilemmas occurring from deviating standards in Indonesia) and a general advice is given on the applicability of the selected BwN solution to other ports in Indonesia and (sub)tropical zones of the Asia Pacific region.

Over the last years, the urge to reduce the world’s air pollutants is rapidly growing. New possibilities in order to replace fossil fuels have been explored and one of them is the usage of green hydrogen. The Argentinian, North Patagonian, province of Río Negro, has a great potential to generate green hydrogen on a large scale, due to the available natural resources. Therefore, the province is ambitious to contribute in the developing worldwide sustainable energy market by producing and exporting green hydrogen. Argentina is located at a large distance from the expected green hydrogen sales market in Europe and Asia. In order to reach competitiveness with respect to other future hydrogen ports, the use of a Free-Trade Zone (FTZ) is considered. This is a delimited territory within a country in which tax benefits can be enjoyed. The Province of Río Negro is considering three different locations for a potential green hydrogen export port: - Punta Colorada Muelle, is an old iron ore export port that is out of operation since 2016. It is located within a FTZ. The deteriorated dry bulk jetty could potentially be reused by accommodating the liquid bulk loading infrastructure. - Punta Colorada South, is a location roughly one kilometre south of old iron ore export port and is also located within a FTZ. - Puerto Lobos, is located on the border of the provinces of Río Negro and Chubut. It has potentially favourable bathymetric and hydrodynamic characteristics. The following main research question is formed: ”Which location between Punta Colorada Muelle, Punta Colorada South and Puerto Lobos is the most suitable for a potential hydrogen export port in Río Negro?” A conceptual qualitative Multi-Criteria Analysis is executed to compare the locations. In order to complete this analysis, firstly the hydrogen export port requirements and criteria are defined. Subsequently, primary and secondary data is collected. The primary data consists out of fieldwork surveys, including a topographic analysis, a hydraulic analysis and a structural analysis. The structural analysis is completed solely on the existing jetty at Punta Colorada Muelle, in order to create an understanding of the current state of the jetty. Furthermore, interviews are conducted with the director of the Maritime and Fluvial Research Center (CIEMF), the executive director of investment agency of the Government of Río Negro, and an ex-employee of the previous mining company at Punta Colorada Muelle. Secondary data on all locations is gathered through literature studies and presented documents from stakeholders. With data from the field survey several detailed maps are made. A bathymetry map shows the sea bed profile from Punta Colorada Muelle until Punta Pórfido. A topographic map shows the ground level elevation for Punta Colorada Muelle. An interactive map of the jetty is made which contains all the gathered photographs of the structural components and indicates their level of corrosiveness. Next to that the stakeholders are displayed in a power-interest diagram. Due to the limited information and the quality of the information that was gathered at Puerto Lobos no fair comparison between the locations can be made. Both locations at Punta Colorada have potential to construct a green hydrogen export port. The jetty at Punta Colorada Muelle has the potential to be used in the short-term if it is restored. Punta Colorada South has the advantage that potential future port operations will not depend on dated infrastructure. Next tot that there is no interference with the iron ore port authority. Puerto Lobos has the disadvantage that there is no FTZ and that is situated adjecent to a marine protected area. To properly compare all three locations, bathymetric and aerial surveys that were completed at the Punta Colorada locations will need to be repeated at Puerto Lobos. To create a more definitive conclusion on any location, additional research like a CPT and an in depth analysis of the structural capacity of the jetty is required. From the bathymetric surveys another potentially interesting location was found in Punto Pórfido. It is recommended this location is researched further. Three alternative scenarios for phasing the port construction and operation are presented. These scenarios differ in permanent, temporary or no use of the current jetty at all.

The largest part of the European ports are engaged into addressing proactively environmental and societal issues in order to achieve an always more sustainable development. However, there are several sources that indicate that gaps and barriers exist which impede the sustainable development of many Mediterranean ports. In order to deal with the problems that are identified in ports and specifically in container terminals, which are closely related to their sustainable performance, a framework is developed. The creation of the Port Sustainability Assessment Framework (PSAF) allows the comparison of the current state of terminals with the desired state based on specific sustainability themes and consequently, evaluates their performance. Port sustainability is also approached by means of stakeholders' views and insights, throughout a questionnaire. The application of the framework in the case studies of Piraeus and Livorno, two container terminals of different sizes and challenges but both located in the Mediterranean area, proves that the concept of sustainability in the two container terminal case studies has not yet been embedded in the planning and operational phase as their sustainable performance is low. Another aspect that this master thesis addresses is the need to extend the Port of the Future Serious Game (PoFSG) in order to include in a realistic way port-city future developments and their potential impacts on the environment and the society, as well as to facilitate stakeholder engagement. Based on the results of the sustainability assessment, several weaknesses of the PoFSG are identified and tools are developed which can be useful for extending the PoFSG. The focus is mostly drawn upon two specific aspects: the scoring system of the measures' performance on “People, Planet and Profit” and the inclusion of relevant sustainability measures. Additionally, more general recommendations are made for the other aspects of the PoFSG.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is a country in Southeast Asia with a population close to 60 million people, which suffers from underdeveloped infrastructure. With the change of government and restoration of democracy starting from 2011, policy reforms are anticipated leading to large-scale economic development and growth. This growth is expected to result in rapidly increasing trade volumes. Myanmar’s maritime infrastructure needs upgrades: existing ports are mainly up-river, have limited draught and need continuous dredging. Currently, six deep sea port projects are being planned, but it is not known whether these sites have been selected based on rational, commercial and technical considerations or on (geo)political interests from the past. If these sites have been selected based on outdated political considerations, rather than commercial, well-grounded and sustainable development, they may struggle to obtain finances and support. Especially in the past, port sites were often allocated based on (geo)political considerations. However, because site selection is critical to port development and the long-term success and growth of a port, research into optimum and sustainable site selection is of significant value. The research objective is development of a strategy for deep sea port site selection and port development in Myanmar, by developing, validating and applying a framework for sustainable site selection, integrating a stakeholder-inclusive approach and ecosystem services. This framework is developed based on literature and desk study, and a comprehensive case study conducted in Myanmar. The strategy elaborates upon the optimum site selection (process), conceptual lay-outs and biggest challenges. Following the developed two-step site selection process, a short list with the sites Pathein, Yangon, Mawlamyine and Dawei was obtained. By means of a Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis and a cluster-based ranking, Mawlamyine and Yangon ended first. Yangon seems like a logical choice for deep sea port development, as it is the economic center of the country with the best hinterland connectivity. Despite pressure from stakeholders, it is concluded that Yangon is not a suitable location for deep sea port development because of physical restraints. However, it is a crucial port and must be part of the strategy. Yangon and Thilawa port should maintain and strengthen their current activities, and this appears best in combination with a deep sea port near Kalegauk Island (near Mawlamyine), which is connected with a high-quality road connection to Thailand and the Greater Mekong Subregion. Besides, this site offers many opportunities with respect to Ecosystem Services, by using Ecosystem-Based design principles. This port will accommodate the large Post-Panamax vessels and Yangon and its hinterland will be connected to it by sea, road and rail. Yangon port functions as a feeder port or extended gateway in this combination. This combination of ports can for instance be found in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Besides the combination Kalegauk Island and Yangon, a combination of Pathein (Near Nga Yoke Kaung) and Yangon may be a possible port combination. However, this needs additional research.

Hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water, powered by renewable energy, is seen as the key to enabling the energy transition and creating a new green economy. The result will be a trade market for low-carbon hydrogen where the trade routes will be determined by natural, technical, cost and geopolitical factors. However, to transport or store hydrogen, it must be compressed, liquefied or attached to a carrier due to its low energy density per unit volume. The challenge of this is that the transport of hydrogen is expensive and still at an exploratory stage. More research is needed into the most cost-effective opportunities for the emerging hydrogen transport supply chains. The main objective of this research is to develop a method that provides insight into the effects of hydrogen supply chain configurations on the cost price of hydrogen at the end-use location. The method should provide a better understanding of the influence of different distances and required volumes on the supply chain structure and on the type of hydrogen transport. In addition, by connecting supply chains, it should become clear how the interaction of supply chains affects the cost and throughput. Eventually, it is concluded that if the overseas distance is made variable, DBT will be the most economical option for shorter oversea distances and that for longer oversea distances MCH and ammonia will be the most cost-effective options. This tipping point is around 3500 - 4500 nm (6500 - 8400 km), depending on the volume of the supply chain, the distance to the end user and whether the supply chain configuration is centralized or decentralized. The centralized option will be more cost effective than the decentralized option for all the carriers. It can also be concluded that the cost price of each carrier will approach a some what constant value at large supply chain volumes. From the sensitivity analysis, it can be concluded that the eventual cost price is very sensitive to the WACC and to the price at which the hydrogen is purchased in the export country. In addition, the cost price of LH2 is highly sensitive to the number of storage tanks. All hydrogen carrier options are also relatively sensitive to the energy price.

Over the recent years, the Dutch Continental Shelf has seen the erection of various wind farms in an effort to counter climate change by replacing fossil-based power plants. Since the majority of these sites use scour protections which have a substantial impact on the surroundings, the Dutch government increasingly stimulates and requires ecological enhancement of such structures in order to restore the natural habitat and maintain the marine ecosystem of the North Sea. Oyster enhancement has been one of the methods used for the ecological enhancement of offshore wind farm scour protections. However, studies report that a successful structure for the harbouring of an oyster population is yet to be developed. Existing structures were found to be unstable or unable to provide a suitable habitat for the oysters (Bouma, Belze, et al., 2013; Stokes et al., 2012). The study at hand aims to develop a successful design for oyster broodstock structures for nature enhancement in offshore wind farms. It was conducted for Van Oord as part of project Ecoscour. To establish design criteria for the oyster broodstock structures, oyster habitats and the Borssele V site were analysed and a brainstorm session with partners from project Ecoscour was set up. The final criteria concerned: ecology; structural integrity; commissioning & construction; and monitoring. The design criteria were used to develop several viable structure designs. In order to rapidly assess the strength and stability of potential designs, a Python-based open source tool was built named Econstruct. With this tool, geometries can easily be evaluated under various influences, accounting for the effect of marine fouling. This could be used for quick investigations of loads, stability and structural integrity. The Econstruct tool was validated and analysed for sensitivity for the input parameters, of which the input radius and current velocity had the highest influence on stability. Using the environmental input parameters that hold for the Borssele V wind farm, a terraced design was proposed. After consultation with the manufacturer of the structure, D & M engineers, this proposal was altered to account for manufacturing limitations. The definitive design was evaluated using the Econstruct tool and found to be stable. It was then manufactured, and ultimately placed in Borssele V in October 2020. Several recommendations are made for future research and the design of ecological enhancement structures for offshore wind farms. Most importantly, the Econstruct open source tool can be used in the future for the design of structures for other ecological enhancement projects such as coral reef restorations.

Over the last decades, containerisation became the major way to transport discrete goods replacing a part of general cargo trade and facing the increasing consumer demand of developed and developing world. As a result, container terminals became an important part of a lot of ports worldwide while new technology was developed to encounter the increasing requirements for the operation of container terminals. A container terminal has a quite complicated operation as different kind of equipment and people need to cooperate under a strict timeline that does not tolerate mistakes. The optimisation of a container terminal can be achieved by adjusting different parameters concerning different areas or equipment of the terminal. In this project, the arrangement of the yard layout is analysed focusing on a straddle carrier operation. The comparison criterion is the mean maximum travelling distance that a straddle carrier needs to travel for a seaside job cycle, serving the quay cranes. Considering a rectangular layout, making reasonable assumptions and using simple mathematical relations, the travelling distance of straddle carriers from stacking blocks to the quay is modelled and a proposition to minimise this distance is developed. Then, assuming the speed of straddle carriers for the different areas they move, the mean maximum travelling time for a job cycle is determined. The theory is applied for the container terminal of the port of Thessaloniki in Greece and a rearrangement for its layout is proposed. Using simple mathematics, for a simple yard layout, it is possible to propose changes that, for the port of Thessaloniki, can decrease the travelling time of straddle carriers up to 10%. This result is very sensitive to the assumptions of the driving strategy that straddle carriers follow and to the pooling strategy that is applied for the stacking yard operation.