The Importance of Environmental Factors in the Planning of Container Terminals: The Case Study of the Port of Augusta

Container terminals are the main hubs of the global supply chain but, conversely, they play an important role in energy consumption, environmental pollution and even climate change due to carbon emissions. Assessing the environmental impact of this type of port terminal and choosing appropriate mitigation measures is essential to pursue the goals related to a clean environment and ensuring a good quality of life of the inhabitants of port cities. In this paper the authors present a Terminal Decision Support Tool (TDST) for the development of a container terminal that considers both operation efficiency and environmental impacts. The TDST provides environmental impact mitigation measures based on different levels of evolution of the port's container traffic. An application of the TDST is conducted on the Port of Augusta (Italy), a port that is planning infrastructural interventions in coming years in order to gain a new role as a reference point for container traffic in the Mediterranean.

Automated summary

Container terminals, as main hubs of the global supply chain, play a crucial role in energy consumption, environmental pollution, and climate change. This study introduces a Terminal Decision Support Tool (TDST) to assess the environmental impact of container terminals and provide mitigation measures based on different levels of port traffic evolution. An application of TDST at the Port of Augusta in Italy demonstrates the tool's effectiveness in planning infrastructural interventions for sustainable development.