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This paper disentangles the impact of critical water levels on container cargo transported along the Rhine River. It analyzes monthly throughput and all instances where navigability was constrained due to low or high water levels between 2000 and 2022, employing a time series econometric model. The study considers water level conditions at critical locations between economic centers while controlling for confounding effects. Our findings reveal an average monthly impact of -0.2% per day of disruption and -5.9% when the disruption remained for more than 24 days. Notably, vulnerability to critical conditions has doubled since 2018 and exhibits spatial variation. The most pronounced disturbances and their lagged effects are associated with localized low water level incidents. We show that enhancing the resilience of inland waterways to climate change is essential to avert potential losses in container throughput, estimated to range between 7% and 20% annual average by 2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of dry ports has reshaped the international freight shipping market, introducing both competition pressure (i.e., the common hinterland) and cooperation opportunities (sea-rail intermodal) for seaports. This is more evident in China with the development of the China Railway Express. Unlike dry ports, seaports are more vulnerable to climate change-related disasters, calling for investment in adaptation measures. This paper examines how co-opetition with the dry port affects seaport adaptation investment using a two-stage game-theoretical economic model. Results indicate that cooperation leads to more seaport adaptation investment, while competition results in reduced investment. When compared to the social optimal level of adaptation investment, the seaport tends to under-invest (over-invest) when the cooperation (competition) market size is larger. We also analyze how government subsidies in the seaport's adaptation help achieve optimal social adaptation and how the Knightian uncertainty of the disaster occurrence affects seaport adaptation investments. The relevant policy implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change impacts such as extreme temperatures, snow and ice, flooding, and sea level rise posed significant threats to railway infrastructure networks. One of the important questions that infrastructure managers need to answer is, "How will maintenance costs be affected due to climate change in different climate change scenarios?" This paper proposes an approach to estimate the implication of climate change on the life cycle cost (LCC) of railways infrastructure assets. The proportional hazard model is employed to capture the dynamic effects of climate change on reliability parameters and LCC of railway assets. A use-case from a railway in North Sweden is analyzed to validate the proposed process using data collected over 18 years. The results have shown that precipitation, temperature, and humidity are significant weather factors in selected use-case. Furthermore, our analyses show that LCC under future climate scenarios will be about 11 % higher than LCC without climate impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]