New Ikonion Container Terminal at Piraeus Port Concession, Greece: Enhancing the Climate and Disaster Resilience

As part of the private investment by COSCO Shipping in the public-owned Port of Piraeus (Athens, Greece) in 2010, our team was hired to assess the performance of port infrastructure in the New Ikonion Container Terminal, against seismic and climate-related hazards. Due to the long concession period, the operator wanted to ensure that the design would be able to withstand hazards potentially exceeding the historic records. To this end, our study had to include the assessment of risk for both the existing and the newly designed infrastructure elements as well as their interconnections. Upstream evaluation of commercial port investments greatly relies on the “reputation” factor i.e. their ability to consistently and reliably serve the commercial corridors. As such, of particular criticality in this study was the evaluation of loss of functionality (i.e. the ability of the port to fully accommodate the needs for loading/unloading of vessels) the risk of which could be exacerbated by chronic stresses (mostly attributable to climate change) and are not linked with a major disastrous event.