The seasonal Chindwin river (Myanmar) forms the central artery for transportation in the region. However, the dynamic river behaviour, archaic boat equipment and limited monitoring, yearly results in large numbers of grounding ships, causing injuries and economic losses. A pilot project involving CoVadem technology was initiated in the beginning of 2019 to benefit safer navigation on the Chindwin. CoVadem technology can chart the most up to date water depths by collecting under keel clearance measurements from the commercial fleet. The pilot project aims to increase safety on the Chindwin through sharing information about safe routes and forecasted water depths with captains sailing the river.

The added value of using CoVadem technology, however, is vulnerable to the number of participating vessels. A combination of morphological changes and the typical spatial spread of CoVadem data limits the extent of the navigation channel that can be derived from the data. With only a small part of the navigation channel known it is unclear where passing of other vessels is possible, where speeds should be adjusted due to e.g., bottlenecks and where shorter routes are present.

The objective of this research is to provide more information about the navigable area around CoVadem data in order to assist captains with navigation. During this research, two physics-based models have been developed, able to carry out this task. The ‘soil-model’ combines CoVadem data with assumptions about the maximum slope in the bed.
The ‘axi-symmetric model’ utilises CoVadem data, the axi-symmetric solution and assumptions about sand dunes and river banks in a model to estimate a navigable area.

Two ‘reliability indicators’ have been developed that can indicate areas of the river where the output of the axi-symmetric model is reliable in its estimate. One indicator is related to the channel stability, it is calculated from many years of satellite imagery. The other indicator is related to channel curvature.

To measure the performance of the models and the reliability indicators, two dimensionless performance indicators have been developed: the safety score and the channel coverage score. The models and the reliability indicators were consecutively tested and evaluated for four study cases located along the Chindwin river.

The results are promising. It follows from this research that navigation channel estimates around scarce CoVadem ship track data can substantially benefit from application of a physics-based model. The soil-model is very robust, but has limited added value for navigation. The axi-symmetric model increases the navigable width estimate around a single CoVadem trackline significantly O(100 m). The performance indicators can improve the reliability of the axi-symmetric model significantly.

This research combines Big Data, physics-based models and remote sensing in a not early demonstrated way: with models tailored for navigable area estimates and with measured data as the starting point. The correlation between axi-symmetric model reliability and remote sensing/curvature is, moreover, something that has not been demonstrated before. Finally, the two developed performance indicators show great promise for the evaluation of navigable area estimates. As such, this research adds to current advancements in (open-access) cross-platform data accumulation and utilisation.

This paper is the result of the first collaboration project between Delft University of Technology and Sohar University. The project team consisted of 6 core- members from both Sohar University and TU Delft along with 5 more students, together appointed to help find an answer for a problem stated by Sohar Industrial Port Company and Majis Industrial Services.
This paper proposes a deep seawater intake for the cooling water system of Sohar Industrial Port, Oman. In the region’s summers, surface water temperatures tend to rise to very high levels. Among other things, this results in inefficient cooling of the processes associated with the steel manufacturers, petrochemical plants, refineries and power plants present in the port. The proposed inlet subtracts water 4 km offshore at an average temperature of 24.9 ±C. Using this colderwater, the demand is expected to go downwith approx. 2% in the winter and 16% in the summer, saving system capacity and pumping costs. The 2,148 MW generated power at Sohar port is expected to increase efficiency by 0.72%. Furthermore, the coastal waters are vulnerable to algal blooms. These toxic algae can not be filtered out efficiently and lead to temporary closure of the desalination plants (mainly Reverse Osmosis) causing a threat to the drinking water supply in the entire north of Oman. This paper concludes however that there is not an (economically) feasible inlet location that is unaffected by the algal blooms. Other water characteristics such as turbidity and organic content are also expected not to show significant improvement at the proposed inlet location but more elaborate measurements should validate this.
A technical feasibility study was conducted to find the optimal system design. Multiple alternative materials being metals, alloys, HDPE and concrete have been investigated to serve as water conveyors to transport the water from the inlet to the shore. A possible design for the off-shore water inlet structure was made as well as a recommended design for the connection of the pipelines with the current facilities. Site selection, material selection, friction head loss calculations, pipeline sizing, concrete ballast weights, seabed pipeline stability and planning have been discussed in this report. Finally, a financial feasibility study has been conducted. A model was built and costs have been quantitatively estimated based on the technical design. Benefits have been quantified where possible and if not, were qualitatively described. It is concluded that it is not financially feasible to build a deep seawater intake for the entire port. Building a limited-scale variant, only providing RO and power plants, is a better solution but still unfeasible. Recommendation is done to scrutinise the processes within power plants and RO-plants further as their potential benefits are considerable.