An Inch of Water
What's it Worth?
An
extra inch of water depth in a port = larger ships, millions of dollars worth
of additional cargo.
The
National Ocean Service
Deeper Ports, Deeper Pockets
One more inch of water in a port means larger
ships can enter, bringing millions of dollars worth of additional cargo.
And, carrying more goods in one trip means
fewer total trips to ship the same amount of stuff.
That’s good for the safety of our waterways,
it’s good for the environment, and it’s good for your wallet.
Our nation’s ports are the lifelines of our
economy.
In 2017, foreign trades through U.S. ports
were valued at $1.6 trillion — $527 billion exports and $1.1 trillion imports
were moved by vessels.
When goods travel through ports, it means
they are traveling via ship.
NOS is in the business of making sure that
mariners — and the goods they are transporting — make it to their destinations
safely and quickly.
Just as airplane pilots need to know current
weather and ground conditions, ship captains need to know exactly what's going
on in the water and in the air.
NOS monitoring systems supply mariners with
the real-time data they need, providing information such as water levels, wind
and current speeds and directions, and water temperature.
But what does this have to do with that inch
of water?
A ship needs a certain amount of water in
order to float and not touch bottom.
This water depth is called the ship’s
“draft.”
The more cargo a ship carries, the more the
ship will weigh, meaning it will sink more and require more draft.
Even a slight decrease in the depth of a
waterway will require a ship to reduce the amount of cargo it is carrying.
On the flipside, more water means more cargo.
This, in turn, translates into fewer trips needed to transport goods.
Accurate data provided by NOS are crucial to
making decisions regarding ship draft and cargo loads.
In the absence of this information, mariners
would need to be much more conservative in their draft estimates, or risk
additional maritime accidents.
Consider that carrying more cargo on a single
trip means fewer trips overall to transfer the same amount of materials.
That’s good for the safety of our waterways,
it’s good for the environment, and, because it saves money, it’s good for your
wallet.
One more inch of water in a port means larger
ships can enter, bringing millions of dollars worth of additional cargo.
And, carrying more goods in one trip means
fewer total trips to ship the same amount of stuff.
With one more inch of depth in a port, a cargo
ship could carry about 50 more tractors, 5,000 televisions, 30,000 laptops, or
770,000 bushels of wheat.
Below, see about how much cargo a ship can
carry — and what it's worth — with one more inch of depth in a port.
57 tractors, worth more than $3.8 million
31,552 laptop computers, worth more than
$21.8 million
772,900 bushels of wheat, worth more than
$60,000
5,144 55-inch televisions, worth
approximately $3 million
In 2017, the
Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach increased the draft for incoming ships from 65 feet to 66 feet as a direct result of NOAA's
Precision Navigation Project, with a future goal of a 69-foot draft.
Each
additional foot of draft allows carriage of 40,000 additional barrels of crude
oil, and 69 feet would eliminate the need for lightering.
The increase
was made possible, in part, by the expansion of the physical observing
infrastructure at the port, including forecasts for wave and swell conditions
from the National
Weather Service,
water level data from the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, wave buoy data from the U.S.
Integrated Ocean Observing System, shoreline data from the National
Geodetic Survey, and
high resolution bathymetry from the Office of Coast Survey.
The project
showcases how NOAA supports the increasingly complex decisions mariners make as
they navigate ever-larger ships through U.S. ports, especially decisions
related to underkeel clearance.
This flagship project integrates private-sector innovation and NOAA data streams for safe navigation of deep-draft ships.
The
National Ocean Service
provides data, tools, and services that support coastal economies and their
contribution to the national economy
Ships
move $1.5 trillion worth of products in and out of U.S. ports every year. Every
ship moving in and out of U.S. ports relies on navigation charts and water level information that
NOS alone provides. All mapping, charting, and transportation activities and
infrastructure are founded on a reliable, accurate national coordinate system.
NOS is solely responsible for maintaining that system, which provides more
than $2.4 billion in potential annual benefits to the U.S. economy.
Businesses in the maritime community rely on NOS for a range of decisions, from
how much cargo to load to choosing the safest and most efficient route between
two points. They use NOS data, tools, and services to plan seasonally for ship
schedules to service global trade more safely and efficiently as significantly
larger vessels transit through U.S. ports as a result of the Panama Canal
expansion.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/economy/inch-water/
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