Objectifying Inland Shipping Decision Frameworks: A Case Study on the Climate Resilience of Dutch Inland Waterway Transport Policies

Inland waterway transport (IWT) is a key function of river systems worldwide. It is vulnerable to climate change, specifically to discharge extremes, and competes for water with multiple other functions. A clear framework describing its interests to inform decision-making during regular conditions as well as during climate extremes is as yet unavailable in the literature. To address this gap we examine how inland shipping is taken into account in waterway policies in the Netherlands. We apply the frame of reference method to ‘objectify’ current inland waterway transport (IWT) policies, addressing the themes of waterway capacity, safety, service level, and sustainability. By ‘objectifying’ we mean turning the implicit into an explicit ‘object’ of study on the one hand and revealing underlying ‘objectives’ on the other. We show that policies for waterway capacity and service level are well developed, while waterway safety policies are more implicit, and waterway resilience lacks a quantitative decision framework. We furthermore show that current policies mainly focus on regular conditions, leaving it unclear what changes under extreme river discharge conditions. The results provide important insights into shipping-related decision challenges during climate extremes, highlighting aspects that should be developed further to improve the climate resilience of inland shipping. While some of these implications are specific to the Dutch case, the method applied here can also be used for other river systems that support multiple functions.