Living Ports: Next-Generation Port Infrastructure
June 2021 – May 2024
Waterfront construction: mangrove and azouri seawalls, pocket tiles, coastal armor
Partners: Port of Vigo, Cardama Shipyard, and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Funding: EU Commission
The Goal
Ports require environmentally friendly, and structurally sound infrastructure for daily operations. Living Ports showcases marine infrastructure engineered for this goal, and encourage the adoption of this flexible technology in maritime construction best practices.
The Challenge
Until now, coastal and marine infrastructures have been built with little environmental consideration. Over 70% of marine infrastructures are concrete based, yet concrete is known to damage underwater ecosystems, be vulnerable to degradation under a changing climate, and come with a large carbon footprint. A flexible solution for lowering carbon footprint, ecologically-friendly, structurally superior concrete is needed urgently and at scale to meet the needs of ports and marine construction.
How we built it:
ECOncrete Tech, The Port of Vigo, Cardama Shipyard, and Technical University of Denmark (DTU) were awarded the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Fast Track to Innovation funding to deploy a model solution at the Port. ECOncrete supplied ecosystem-generating concrete technology deployed as 330 m² of seawall and 100 coastal armor units to the Living Ports Project. The two-site installation features a moored underwater observation deck built by Cardama Shipyard that will provide the public with interactive access to view marine life on the ecologically engineered seawalls. The second site is a riprap rebuild with ecological armor units providing stabilization and water-retaining intertidal habitats. Biological monitoring will be conducted by DTU, and for the first time, underwater noise pollution reduction due to marine life growth on concrete will be studied.
Website for more information: www.livingports.eu
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