Overtopping hazards to port activities: Application of a new methodology to risk management (POrt Risk MAnagement Tool)

In the past 20 years, the need of ports to serve a fleet whose dimensions are continuously increasing due to economies of scale, has derived on a port infrastructures growth with a trend to look for greater drafts at deeper waters and therefore the protection structures built in the last years have been increasingly exposed to severer maritime climate action. Consequently, overtopping phenomenon has been identified as a potential risk factor able to cause structural damages and operative failure modes to vulnerable economic activities located at these port facilities. Port activities must be developed ensuring operative and safety conditions what imply reducing uncertainties of overtopping phenomena by using prediction methods which may allow overtopping risk management. This paper provides a risk assessment methodology which is integrated into an overtopping risk management framework to cope with safety problems in port exploitation. Overtopping risk value is measured by combining probability of occurrence of an undesirable event together with its consequences, estimated in terms of costs or delays and given in base of the vulnerability of the affected port system. The development of this methodology is described and finally applied to a real case study what seems to reinforce the validity of the proposed method to overtopping risk assessment.