The environmental imperative: Merging natural and social sciences in permitting marine logistics

Successful and sustainable logistics operations in the marine and estuarine environments depend on obtaining environmental permissions. By applying a recognised ISO-compliant risk assessment and risk management approach linked to the modified DPSIR framework DAPSI(W)R(M) (for Drivers, Activities, Pressures, State changes, Impact (on human Welfare) and Responses (using Measures) then marine logistics can achieve the double-wins of protecting the natural environmental structure and functioning while delivering ecosystem services from which society gains goods and benefits. Into these concepts are embedded the further framework of the Ten-tenets of sustainable and successful environmental management – that our actions have to be ecologically sustainable, economically viable, technologically feasible, societally desirable/tolerable, legally permissible, administratively achievable, politically expedient, morally defensible (ethically correct), culturally inclusive and effectively communicable. These approaches will be illustrated using examples from port and navigation systems in Europe and elsewhere and will includes elements of best-practice and where challenges have arisen which can jeopardise port operations.