Managing Ports and Harbours as Sustainable Complex Systems

摘要

Ports and harbours are very large infrastructure projects which have great impact on the community, environment and the economy of a country. Ports are not only a vital lifeline link between water-side and land-side traffic, but are also sources of national wealth, pride and concern. Stakeholders now want requirements to be described in a creative, rigorous, and policy-relevant manner and for critical issues such as sustainable development to be incorporated into developments. This paper looks at the issue of sustainable development for ports and harbours as potentially being one of managing complexity, and it considers how holistic system requirements may be accommodated in this process. It also suggests that currently not enough use is being made of stakeholder data - economic, social, and environmental - and that significant operational improvements could result from closer attention to this issue.