Overview

Waterborne commerce is a major factor in the economy of many countries. Because waterborne commerce depends on the ability of nations to provide adequate navigation channels to transport cargo, dredging to develop and maintain waterways, ports, and harbors is an important engineering activity. In the United States, the federal government is responsible for improving and maintaining the navigation channels of the nation's ports, harbors, and inland waterways. This responsibility presently involves approximately 25,000 miles of federal channels and over 1,000 harbors. These channels serve 130 of the nation's 150 largest cities and are used to transport over one-fourth of the nation's ton-miles of domestic cargo. The traffic on U.S. waterways has been increasing at a compound rate of more than 5 percent per year. Some predictions suggest that the volume of this traffic, such as grain, coal, ores, chemicals, fuels, and construction materials, will increase from four to six times in the next 50 years. Approximately 400 million cubic yards of dredged material are dredged from the nation's channels and harbors each year to meet the needs of waterborne commerce. The average total expenditure for dredging over the past three years approaches $550 million. It is clear that dredging is a major engineering activity supporting the economic growth of the United States and many other countries. Specific topics covered in the papers presented in these proceedings include dredging equipment, management, economics, regulation and environmental impacts. Case reports in special dredging projects are presented. Planning, design, monitoring, and special techniques are also considered.

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