Port Technology
The SmartPort initiative was launched in June 2021 through a $1.6 million grant from the US Economic Development Administration and a $1.4 million commitment from state and port partners.
The initiative will bring in technology giant IBM to create a platform which takes in bathymetric data of the Mississippi Riverbed.
Access to the platform, ready by mid-2023 at the latest, will be offered to vessels using the river and ports along the river.
Using Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the new platform will take in the data and forecast changes in shoaling for ports.
Customised for specific ports, operatives will be able to see in real-time the shoaling forecasts of the riverbed, as well as a tailored resilience strategy based National Oceanic Atmosphere Resilience Index.
Justin Ehrenwerth is President and CEO of The Water Institute of the Gulf (a non-profit research institution applying advanced science to the Gulf region) and one of the leads of the scheme.
Ehrenwerth said that one catalyst for the scheme was a recent emergency dredging tender worth $3 million issued by the Port of New Orleans which highlighted the state’s issues with regard to forecasting sediment changes in the Mississippi River.
“I was surprised to learn that the port and all ports on the Mississippi River don’t have more advanced analytics to be able to predict the movement of sediment before the problem occurs,” he said. Read the full story here.