Maritime transportation: Let's slow down a bit

Maxime Sèbe (1, 2, 3) , Pierre Scemama (1) , Anne Choquet (4, 1) , Jean-Luc Jung (5) , Aldo Chircop (6) , Phénia Marras-Aït Razouk (7) , Sylvain Michel (7) , Valérie Stiger-Pouvreau (8) , Laura Recuero-Virto (2)

1 AMURE - Aménagement des Usages des Ressources et des Espaces marins et littoraux - Centre de droit et d'économie de la mer
2 i3-CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion i3
3 MIO - Institut méditerranéen d'océanologie
4 Brest Business School
5 ISYEB - Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité
6 Dalhousie University [Halifax]
7 French Biodiversity Agency
8 LEMAR - Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Environnement Marin (LEMAR)

Maritime transportation is a major contributor to the world economy, but has significant social and environmental impacts. Each impact calls for different technical or operational solutions. Amongst these solutions, we found that speed reduction measures appear to mitigate several issues: (1) collision with wildlife; (2) collision with non-living objects; (3) underwater noise; (4) invasive species; and (5) gas emission. We do not pretend that speed reduction is the best solution for each individual issue mentioned in this paper, but we argue that it could be a key solution to significantly reduce these threats all together. Further interdisciplinary research is required to balance private economic costs of speed reduction measures with environmental and social benefits emerging from all mitigated issues.

Domaines: Environnement et Société

Maxime Sèbe, Pierre Scemama, Anne Choquet, Jean-Luc Jung, Aldo Chircop, et al.. Maritime transportation: Let's slow down a bit. Science of the Total Environment, 2022, 811, ⟨10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152262⟩. ⟨hal-03511933⟩