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Abstract Humans have built ports on all the coasts of the world, allowing people to travel, exploit the sea, and develop trade. The proliferation of these artificial habitats and the associated maritime traffic is not predicted to fade in the coming decades. Ports share common characteristics: Species find themselves in novel singular environments, with particular abiotic properties—e.g., pollutants, shading, protection from wave action—within novel communities in a melting pot of invasive and native taxa. Here, we discuss how this drives evolution, including setting up of new connectivity hubs and gateways, adaptive responses to exposure to new chemicals or new biotic communities, and hybridization between lineages that would have never come into contact naturally. There are still important knowledge gaps, however, such as the lack of experimental tests to distinguish adaptation from acclimation processes, the lack of studies to understand the putative threats of port lineages to natural populations or to better understand the outcomes and fitness effects of anthropogenic hybridization. We thus call for further research examining “biological portuarization,” defined as the repeated evolution of marine species in port ecosystems under human‐altered selective pressures. Furthermore, we argue that ports act as giant mesocosms often isolated from the open sea by seawalls and locks and so provide replicated life‐size evolutionary experiments essential to support predictive evolutionary sciences.

This paper points out the possibilities of better exploitation of marine traffic as well as its connection with other kinds of traffic. Special attention is given to the analysis of 1,081 harbors about their availability during the year. The methods and algorithms used in GIS are buffers, cluster, method of interpolations, and network analysis. The methods used for the purpose of conducting numerical analyses are algorithms that served for the analysis of the network, its transport features, and the connectivity with harbors in terms of geospace. The main results found in this research showed that harbors have good connectivity in the first place with road traffic and after that with air and railroad traffic. According to data from 2019, all traffic lines cover 4.1 × 1015 km, and the road traffic has the most significant potential in connection with the harbors. The most connected harbors and airports are in the east coast of North America, west coast, north Europe, southern Europe, south-east Australia, a central part of Oceania, and south-east Africa. The results in the modified Likert scale between airports and harbors showed medium results. The densest road network is located in the eastern part of USA, western and central part of Europe, and east coast of China. The number of possible connected lines between main road nodes and harbors is 0.8 × 109. This type of traffic showed excellent results and connection with harbors. The number of possible connected lines per month between railroads and harbors is 1.3 × 103. This type of traffic showed low connectivity with the harbors. In the end comparison of harbors with air, road and railroad networks were established. The geographical position of harbors was analyzed, and better understanding was performed on a global scale.

Infragravity (IG) waves significantly affect the operational efficiency of ports. Therefore, an accurate prediction of IG waves inside a harbor is necessary. In this study, the accuracy of the wave-group-resolving model XBeach Surfbeat (XB-SB, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands) in predicting the IG waves inside a harbor was assessed by comparing its results with field measurements. Field measurements were performed at Hambantota Port in southern Sri Lanka. Three acoustic waves and current sensors were used to observe the wave characteristics inside and outside the harbor. First, the model was validated against observations outside the port. Next, the performance accuracy of XB-SB in modeling the hydrodynamics in the harbor was evaluated by comparing its results with the values measured inside the port. The results of the numerical simulations indicated that both the nearshore short and IG wave heights can be accurately reproduced by XB-SB in an open domain without many obstacles. However, the short wave heights in the harbor are severely underestimated by XB-SB. The IG waves inside the harbor are overestimated most of the time. Moreover, the natural periods of Hambantota Port are well calculated by XB-SB. In general, XB-SB is a reliable tool for predicting nearshore IG waves. However, it requires further improvement to reproduce the hydrodynamics in a well-sheltered harbor, such as Hambantota Port.

The COVID-19 related lockdowns have brought the planet to a standstill. It has severely shrunk the global economy in the year 2020, including India. The blue economy and especially the small-scale fisheries sector in India have dwindled due to disruptions in the fish catch, market, and supply chain. This research presents the applicability of satellite data to monitor the impact of COVID-19 related lockdown on the Indian fisheries sector. Three harbors namely Mangrol, Veraval, and Vankbara situated on the north-western coast of India were selected in this study based on characteristics like harbor’s age, administrative control, and availability of cloud-free satellite images. To analyze the impact of COVID in the fisheries sector, we utilized high-resolution PlanetScope data for monitoring and comparison of “area under fishing boats” during the pre-lockdown, lockdown, and post-lockdown phases. A support vector machine (SVM) classification algorithm was used to identify the area under the boats. The classification results were complemented with socio-economic data and ground-level information for understanding the impact of the pandemic on the three sites. During the peak of the lockdown, it was found that the “area under fishing boats” near the docks and those parked on the land area increased by 483%, 189%, and 826% at Mangrol, Veraval, and Vanakbara harbor, respectively. After phase-I of lockdown, the number of parked vessels decreased, yet those already moved out to the land area were not returned until the south-west monsoon was over. A quarter of the annual production is estimated to be lost at the three harbors due to lockdown. Our last observation (September 2020) result shows that regular fishing activity has already been re-established in all three locations. PlanetScope data with daily revisit time has a higher potential to be used in the future and can help policymakers in making informed decisions vis-à-vis the fishing industry during an emergency situation like COVID-19.

Optimization of maintenance and design of coastal steel infrastructure needs for long-term predictive degradation models. The phenomenon of corrosion in the offshore and coastal environment is very complex due to the stochastic and changing nature of the environment (temperature, water chemical properties) and the multiple involved processes in competition. In the GEROM French project, the objective was to build a database of the residual thickness measured from ultrasonic measurements on sheet piles and piles carried out during 40 years in commercial and military harbors along the French coast. A total amount of 35,460 measurements were gathered. After a detailed analysis of the data and statistical modeling, a probabilistic model of corrosion is proposed for sheet piles. It relies on a piecewise description of the process with the depth depending on the exposed zone and a time-dependent evolution of parameters of the gamma probability density function.

Ports and their regions have experienced at least a century of crisis from wars (e.g., World War I and II), technological change (e.g., containerization and information and computer technology), political change (e.g., end of the Cold War and liberalization of commerce and trade in countries like China and India) and globalization. As such ports have needed to adjust to these conditions to maintain their competitiveness. They have done this by adapting their physical and institutional infrastructures and the adoption of new technologies. In this paper it is argued however that institutional adaptation is the most important way in which ports have changed in pursuit of sustained competitiveness. The paper defines institutions in keeping with the view of the new institutional economists and develops an institutional typology for framing the analyses of four case studies of ports and/or their regions that faced crisis conditions. The case studies include an analysis of the problems and responses made by the ports and then an institutional examination and evaluation of the adjustment process pursued. Conclusions are made as working hypotheses about the process of institutional adjustment to competitiveness crises of ports and their regions and directions for future research are presented.

Abstract This study investigated the effects of tributyltin (TBT) on the morphology of the genital system of the gastropod Stramonita rustica in southern Bahia, Brazil. For this, 330 specimens were collected during the summer of 2014 at eight sampling points to ascertain whether male sex organs had developed in addition to the complete female genital tract in females (= imposex). The analyses were made under a stereoscopic microscope. Imposex and their associated indexes, and the sterile females, exhibited the highest rates in harbors and shipyards areas. Despite the total ban of TBT in anti-fouling paints on a global scale since 2003, the results of this and other studies indicate the continued use of those paints on the Brazilian coast. This shows the inefficiency of existing legislation and the need to strengthen enforcement of the ban.