TRA-940: ASSESSING CURRENT AND FUTURE MACKENZIE RIVER FREIGHT VOLUMES IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

• Main Authors: Zheng, Yunzhuang, Kim, Amy, Du, Qianqian
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarship@Western 2016
• Subjects: Transportation Engineering; Mackenzie River; Northwest Territories; Nunavut; Mackenzie river
• Online Access: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/csce2016/London/Transportation/21; https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/context/csce2016/article/1248/viewcontent/TRA_940.pdf

The Mackenzie River is a major freight transportation route that connects many remote communities in the Northwest Territories and parts of Nunavut to southern Canada’s transportation network. The river is only navigable during the summer months, from mid-June until sometime in late-September to mid-October, when it is clear of ice. However, the water conditions of the river have changed significantly in recent years. Although water levels always decrease as the delivery season moves into fall, these reductions have been occurring much faster, in turn reducing barge loading capacities as well as operational speeds. In addition, based on simulations of ice breakup and water volumes in the Mackenzie River basin, the sailing season opening dates are anticipated to shift earlier in the future. In the end, the main impact of climate change on river transport is not definitive events but rather, increased variability in events. This research aims to account for those abovementioned climate changes in the freight volume scheduling process, and conducts a numerical analysis based on the projections of future water conditions from climate simulation models as well as predicted freight volumes from time-series analysis and forecast models. The results of the numerical analysis can help local government and waterway transportation companies to better understand how freight scheduling strategies could account for climate changes that affect regional waterway transportation and, hence, optimize their operational schedules to take advantage of good water conditions while reducing financial cost.