Explore vacations
Choose a Continent
Choose a Destination
Follow us:
Across the maritime sector, a quiet shift is underway. Extreme weather is reshaping how ports operate, plan and invest. Heat can halt crane operations, heavy rainfall can overwhelm drainage networks in minutes, and storm driven flooding can force entire terminals offline. These events are no longer exceptional. They are becoming part of the operational landscape and ports and ports are being pushed to rethink what resilience truly means.
International experience shows that many of the most effective resilience measures do not come from infrastructure upgrades alone. The way a port prepares its workforce, collaborates with surrounding communities, restores natural buffers or communicates during emergencies often determines whether it recovers quickly or faces prolonged disruption. These dimensions are sometimes overlooked, yet they strongly influence how a port absorbs shocks and restarts essential functions.
The latest Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report from the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure, focusing on gender equality, disability and social inclusion, offers a valuable perspective for the port sector. Through case studies from Malaysia, the Caribbean, Spain and the United States, it highlights how social, organisational and ecological factors shape vulnerability and how inclusive approaches can strengthen adaptation.
The following lessons translate these insights into practical guidance for port authorities, terminal operators and policymakers working to navigate a decade of accelerating climate challenges.
Port communities are often the first to feel the impact of extreme weather. In Johor, Malaysia, neighbourhoods surrounding the port face recurrent flooding that disrupts daily life, damages homes and affects workers who depend on port related income. These vulnerabilities can slow recovery after a storm and weaken the social fabric that ports rely on during emergencies.
To address this, the Johor Port Authority developed a community centred model that combines corporate social responsibility with Islamic philanthropy. More than 35 000 people have benefited from flood relief, education programmes and targeted social support. Flood actions alone assisted over 2 000 residents with food, temporary shelters, waste clean up and financial aid. Education initiatives supported 430 students with essential supplies and helped around 1 400 improve their exam performance through tuition assistance.
By reducing the immediate and long term consequences of climate related disruptions, these initiatives strengthen social cohesion and increase households' capacity to recover. They also build a level of trust and cooperation that becomes essential when ports need communities to act quickly during emergencies or to support adaptation projects. Ports that invest in this kind of social resilience tend to face fewer cascading challenges when extreme weather hits.
For many Caribbean ports, extreme weather events arrive with little margin for error. Hurricanes, storm surges and heavy rainfall can interrupt marine traffic, damage equipment and isolate island communities that depend on ports for essential supplies. In such situations, gaps in emergency coordination or unclear responsibilities can significantly slow down response and recovery.
The regional initiative on disaster risk management set out to address these challenges through targeted capacity building. Between 2021 and 2024, 182 officials from 14 island nations took part in workshops and tabletop exercises covering hurricanes, tropical storms, oil spills, labour unrest and marine transportation system recovery. These sessions were complemented by site visits to terminals and command centres to identify real world vulnerabilities and pressure points in port logistics.
The project also delivered a Model Emergency Operations Plan in four languages, giving port authorities a practical and adaptable template for organising response actions. By strengthening coordination and clarifying roles before a crisis occurs, initiatives of this kind help ports mobilise faster and more safely when extreme weather strikes. Ports that maintain this level of multidisciplinary training typically demonstrate more effective recovery and fewer operational disruptions during climate emergencies.
As ports adopt more automated, electrified and low emission equipment, they face a growing need for specialised operators and technicians. Many facilities already report shortages in these roles, which can limit operational continuity during peak demand or emergency situations. Broadening the recruitment pool therefore becomes a resilience issue as much as a workforce one.
At the Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, this challenge is addressed through targeted gender inclusion measures. The Female Employee Referral Programme aims for at least 30 percent female representation in the workforce, while the Fast Track Upskilling initiative prepares women for roles such as rubber tyred gantry crane operator and quay crane operator.
These positions are essential for operating the electrified and low emission equipment at the heart of the port’s transition strategy. By diversifying its skilled workforce, PTP reduces its exposure to personnel shortages in critical functions and builds a more adaptable operational model. For ports preparing for automation and decarbonisation, this approach offers a practical pathway to securing the expertise needed for future terminals.
Many ports are built in low lying areas where traditional grey infrastructure struggles to keep pace with rising sea levels, intense rainfall and coastal erosion. Reinforcing quays or expanding drainage systems can help, but these solutions alone rarely address the scale or frequency of today’s climate pressures. This is why natural systems are increasingly recognised as essential complements to engineered defenses. They absorb wave energy, store water, buffer heat and create ecosystem services that ports depend on.
Several case studies illustrate how this shift is already taking shape. In Johor, Malaysia, the Mangrove Care Programme aims to plant 160 000 mangrove trees by 2027. With 25 000 already planted, these restored mangroves stabilise shorelines, soften storm impacts and support biodiversity while involving local youth and port staff. In Seattle, USA, restoring more than 85 hectares of freshwater, estuarine and marine habitats has strengthened flood protection, improved ecological conditions and reinstated access to tribal fishing grounds.
Elsewhere, ports integrated into dense urban areas are redesigning waterfronts to work with natural processes. In Los Angeles, USA, and Palma, Spain, bioswales, shade structures and extensive vegetation manage stormwater, mitigate heat and create more liveable public spaces. Taken together, these examples show that nature based solutions offer practical, measurable protection against climate hazards while generating social and ecological benefits. Ports that embed these approaches early in planning often gain long term resilience at lower cost than through engineered interventions alone.
Ports do not operate in isolation. Their resilience depends partly on the resilience of the neighbourhoods around them: when heatwaves, flooding or stormwater overwhelm adjacent districts, access routes can close, workers may be unable to reach terminals and emergency operations can be delayed. A well designed port city interface can reduce these vulnerabilities by improving drainage, mitigating heat, creating safe circulation routes and strengthening cooperation with local authorities and residents.
This is the rationale behind the waterfront transformation in Palma, Spain. Through more than 60 public meetings, citizens helped shape the 3.5 kilometre Nou Passeig Marítim, influencing decisions on crossings, shading, green areas and mobility. The project redistributes space in favour of pedestrians and cyclists and integrates over 1 800 trees and 37 000 square metres of vegetation, which reduce heat and improve stormwater absorption along a highly exposed coastline. In Los Angeles, USA, the Wilmington Waterfront Promenade follows the same logic. Its shaded areas, native plants, accessible pathways and sustainable stormwater systems create a cooler and safer environment for nearby neighbourhoods while improving emergency access and reducing localised flooding risks.
These projects show that treating port city interfaces as functional resilience zones, rather than simple boundaries, can reduce climate related disruptions, support smoother emergency response and build stronger public backing for adaptation measures.
Effective emergency response depends on whether people receive information in time and in a format they can act on. Yet in many coastal zones, the groups most exposed to flooding and storm surges often have the weakest access to alerts and official guidance. Informal workers may not be integrated into communication channels, low income households may lack digital access, people with disabilities may not receive messages in accessible formats and women with care responsibilities may need different types of support to evacuate safely. These gaps can slow down emergency response and increase the number of people at risk during port related disruptions.
The Caribbean disaster risk management project tackled these inequalities head on. It developed multilingual alerts, accessible educational materials and created leadership opportunities for women within emergency management systems, ensuring that those who are often underrepresented had a voice in preparedness planning and decision making.
This inclusive approach reflects the Sendai Framework’s call for people centred risk governance. Ports that adopt similar practices can reduce information blind spots, support faster and safer evacuations and strengthen trust during high pressure events.
Ports are deeply interconnected through global supply chains, which means the impacts of extreme weather rarely stop at the terminal gate. When a port is forced to close because of flooding, high winds or heat stress, vessels are delayed, cargo is rerouted and downstream industries can experience shortages. Studies estimate that at least 81 billion US dollars of global trade and more than 120 billion US dollars of economic activity are exposed each year to extreme weather affecting ports and shipping. A disruption in one location can therefore create a cascade of delays across entire regions.
The Caribbean disaster risk management initiative and AIVP’s international network illustrate how shared tools, coordinated frameworks and regular knowledge exchange can help break this chain of vulnerability. Through joint training, harmonised guidelines and peer learning across 14 Caribbean states, partners strengthened their collective capacity to respond to climate events. At the global level, more than 130 AIVP members work together on climate resilience and sustainable port city development, showing how quickly progress accelerates when ports share experience rather than face challenges alone.
Ports that engage in regional platforms and cross border partnerships reinforce their own resilience while reducing the risk of disruptions spreading through the wider supply chain. Collaboration at this scale helps ensure that when extreme weather strikes, ports are not responding in isolation but as part of a coordinated and mutually supportive network.
Ports are under growing pressure to reduce emissions while also reinforcing their resilience plans to deal with increasingly severe climate impacts. These two priorities are often treated as separate agendas, yet several case studies show that actions designed for mitigation can also make port systems more resilient. Green infrastructure, for instance, improves drainage and reduces urban heat while lowering environmental footprints, as seen in Los Angeles, USA, where bioswales and vegetated stormwater systems enhance both ecological performance and climate readiness. Similarly, Palma’s waterfront redevelopment in Spain integrates LED lighting, distributed EV charging and extensive vegetation to reduce emissions while cooling the urban edge, filtering pollutants and managing runoff more effectively during heavy rainfall events.
Some ports go further by linking climate adaptation with long term sustainability goals. Barbados Port Inc., for example, aligned its disaster preparedness work with a strategic vision to become the world’s most innovative green maritime hub by 2030, demonstrating how decarbonisation and resilience planning can reinforce one another. These examples show that integrating climate risk assessment with greenhouse gas reduction helps ports identify actions that deliver co benefits, such as energy systems that provide backup capacity during grid disruptions or ecosystem restoration that protects assets while supporting environmental goals. Ports that treat mitigation and adaptation as interconnected strategies tend to build more robust operational frameworks capable of withstanding both environmental and economic pressures.
Ports can accelerate resilience by approaching environmental measures as strategic adaptation tools. Prioritise actions that deliver dual benefits, such as electrified equipment that reduces emissions while ensuring operational continuity during fuel shortages, or green infrastructure that cools terminals and prevents drainage overloads. Align environmental and resilience teams internally, develop joint budgets and assess projects based on how effectively they reduce risk and support decarbonisation.
Securing finance is one of the most persistent obstacles to large scale climate adaptation. Many ports struggle to mobilise the long term, flexible funding needed to upgrade infrastructure, restore ecosystems or support vulnerable communities. Several case studies in the report point to alternative pathways. In Seattle, USA the Duwamish River project introduced a habitat credit bank that allows third parties to purchase mitigation credits, creating a recurring revenue stream for future ecological restoration. In Johor, Malaysia, the Wakalah Zakat framework enables the port authority to redirect religious tax funds toward social, educational and resilience related programmes, representing around 2.5 million Malaysian ringgit (equivalent to 530 000 US dollars) invested between 2024 and 2025.
These examples illustrate how ports can diversify funding sources by combining public, private and community-based mechanisms. Broader financial trends reinforce the urgency. Major companies could face up to 1.2 trillion US dollars in annual losses by 2050 if they fail to adapt, yet adaptation measures currently receive less than 10% of global climate finance. Ports that explore blended financing models, align their adaptation plans with national strategies and quantify the economic value of avoided losses are better positioned to access funding and demonstrate the return on resilience investments.
Effective climate adaptation depends on having a clear picture of who and what is at risk. Without detailed data, resilience measures risk missing the most exposed groups or underestimating the scale of vulnerability. The Dominica case study illustrates the value of a rigorous diagnostic approach. Survey teams conducted 527 structured assessments combining demographic, socio economic, environmental and structural information. Over half of respondents were women, and the data captured disability status, income levels and household composition. This revealed that 25% of households faced elevated vulnerability and enabled authorities to target retrofits and support much more accurately.
For ports, investing in similarly detailed risk mapping and understanding the social realities of workers, users and neighbouring communities leads to better prioritisation and more efficient resource allocation. When emergency plans and adaptation strategies are grounded in real local conditions, ports can design responses that are both operationally effective and socially responsive.
The Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report makes a simple point with far reaching implications: a port’s strength is not defined by concrete alone. It is shaped by its people, its relationship with nature and its ability to make decisions grounded in evidence. Ports recover faster when communities trust them, when workers are trained and supported, when natural buffers are restored and when risks are understood with precision.
Across the case studies, ten lessons stand out as a roadmap for the decade ahead:
These lessons echo many of the questions SAFARI is working on with its pilot ports in Dunkirk, Seville and Lisbon: how to support operational decision making during extreme weather, how to strengthen coordination across agencies, how to design communication strategies that reach everyone on site and how to integrate nature based and digital solutions into everyday port operations.
As SAFARI continues to collaborate with European and international partners, these insights offer both direction and confidence. They show that building resilience is not only about defense. It is about creating ports that are safer, fairer and better equipped to navigate a changing climate. Inclusive, people centered approaches are not an add on. They are a strategic advantage for future ready ports.
To explore the port related case studies featured in this article, and to dive into the broader scope of the report which examines how integrating gender equality, disability inclusion and social equity strengthens climate resilience across global infrastructure systems, download the full Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report here.
