Standing Watch: Baselining Predictable Events That Influence Maritime Operations in the Context of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

The authors present a practical framework for assessing seasonal events that may influence maritime operations, seeking to tie in discussions about climate change adoption to maritime operational assessments. Most maritime-related research tends to focus on a single event, such as a storm, but maritime systems operate within complex systems that have some predictable patterns. These predictable patterns due to natural events, such as weather and water levels, can influence operations. By contrast, other factors, such as cargo peaks or cultural activities, could also shape maritime systems. The growing focus on adopting human activities to the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals means that system operations should consider their relationship to these broader goals. By integrating data from emergency management databases and weather information sources with other inputs, the authors, in collaboration with various stakeholder groups, created a matrix of regionally specific predictable events that may occur within a region by time of year that can be linked to the Sustainability Development Goals. The matrix was vetted to verify the information, ensuring that all perspectives were considered. The main findings were that a seasonal event matrix was not just a theoretical tool but a practical reference for examining operational patterns in a river for various uses, such as training, operational planning, and emergency response coordination.