Small and Regional Ports? An Ongoing Collective Inquiry
A. Sarkar (Vereniging Deltametropool (Association Deltametropolis), TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
M. Avellar Montezuma (IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment, Waterstudio.nl)
L. Höller (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Yvonne van Mil (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
S. Sivo (Università Iuav di Venezia, Universiteit Leiden)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Small and regional ports are often understood in relation to scale, defined by what they lack compared to large, globally connected hubs in terms of volume, capacity, or visibility. This way of thinking, however, tends to overlook how these ports actually function on the ground. Rather than operating primarily as nodes in global logistics chains, small ports are usually deeply entangled with urban form, local economies, ecological systems, and municipal governance. They bring together flows of goods, labour, sediments, and environmental impacts, while at the same time anchoring everyday practices, cultural identities, and place-based economic activities.
To ground these reflections, the blog draws on discussions from a public event organized by PortCityFutures under its Small Ports, Big Challenges thematic track, held on 17 October 2025. The meeting brought together researchers and practitioners to explore how small and regional ports operate within deltas, river basins, and port clusters—not as secondary infrastructures, but as places where questions of sustainability, governance, spatial transformation, and regional connectivity become especially tangible.