Water transportation planning in connection with extreme weather conditions; case study – Port of Novi Sad, Serbia

The Danube has a length of 588 km in the Republic of Serbia. The water transport on this river is underused. The hazardous events have a great impact on the traffic on this river, and the understanding of these events is of great importance. This study focuses on hazardous events on the Danube with the main focus on the port of Novi. The hazardous events used in this study are extreme air temperatures, devastating winds, drought, and heavy precipitation. The hazardous events were represented using geographic information systems (GIS), geostatistics, and numerical methods. The potential of the river transport network and the port capacity were analyzed and compared with the hazardous events of the last 30 years. The results showed that three areas of the port are of great importance for port security, and two areas are extremely affected by hazardous events. The distance of the port of Novi Sad from heavy precipitation events is 6.8 km in the southwestern direction. The periods of extremely low precipitation (climatic drought) were in 1994, 2008, 2012, 2015, 2019, and 2021. Extreme average maximum temperatures were in 1995, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2019. On the other hand, minimum average temperatures were in 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2017, and 2018, and the strongest winds were in 1995, 1998, 2003, 2009, 2012, and 2014. The methods and techniques of GIS, used in this research, have confirmed new potential geographical positions of the port that can be better adapted to future climate changes. Another main objective of this research is to recommend better spatial planning and construction of new green corridors.