Through interviews, workshops, and structured analysis, EO4PORT identified a set of concrete challenges that ports face in their daily work. These challenges were then grouped into four main themes:
For each challenge, EO4PORT examined:
what data is currently used,
where the limitations are, and
how Earth Observation (EO) could help provide better, more scalable information.
This page summarises selected challenges and shows how EO can contribute to addressing them.
Ports are under growing pressure to understand and manage their environmental footprint. EO4PORT identified several recurring challenges.
What is the challenge?
Ports need to understand where and when air pollution peaks occur over their assets and surrounding communities, in order to manage emissions and support health-related policies.
Current practice & limitations
Monitoring is often based on in-situ stations and regulatory reporting. These measurements are accurate but spatially sparse and resource-intensive, making it difficult to get a complete picture across the port area and its hinterland.
How EO can help
EO can provide spatially continuous indicators of pollutants (e.g., NO₂, SO₂, aerosols) and complement in-situ networks. This supports:
hotspot detection,
trend analysis, and
evaluation of mitigation measures (e.g., cleaner fuels, shore power).
What is the challenge?
Ports must monitor water quality in basins, channels and adjacent coastal waters, including contamination by sediments, nutrients or other substances that affect ecosystems and operations.
Current practice & limitations
Monitoring often relies on water probes and in-situ sampling, which provide high-quality data but are laborious and limited in spatial coverage.
How EO can help
EO can regularly map surface water properties over large areas, helping to:
· detect anomalies and potential contamination zones,
· prioritise in-situ sampling, and
· support long-term environmental assessments.
What is the challenge?
Ports are increasingly asked to quantify and reduce GHG emissions, both from ships at berth and from land-side operations.
Current practice & limitations
Emissions are typically estimated using activity-based models and inventories. These are essential but often make assumptions and may not capture spatial patterns or short-term variations.
How EO can help
EO-derived indicators can complement inventories by highlighting spatial and temporal patterns of atmospheric constituents related to GHG emissions. While EO does not replace bottom-up accounting, it can provide independent, spatially explicit insight for planning and communication.
What is the challenge?
Communities around ports are increasingly sensitive to light, odour and noise pollution, which affect quality of life and local ecosystems.
Current practice & limitations
Measurement campaigns and local sensors are often episodic and localised, making it hard to understand overall patterns and to link them to specific activities.
How EO can help (light component)
EO-based night-time lights provide an objective view of artificial lighting intensity and distribution. This can support:
· identification of light pollution hotspots,
· assessment of changes after lighting interventions, and
· evidence-based dialogue with communities and regulators.
(Noise and odour remain more dependent on local measurements but can be analysed together with EO-based spatial information on activities and land use.)
Ports must manage structural, navigational and operational risks, often under challenging environmental conditions.
What is the challenge?
Key port structures such as quays, piers and breakwaters can deform over time due to settlement, loading or geotechnical issues. Early detection is crucial for safety and cost-effective maintenance.
Current practice & limitations
Structural condition is typically monitored via visual inspections and local instruments. These approaches are targeted but can be resource-intensive and infrequent, potentially missing subtle or distributed patterns.
How EO can help
EO techniques (e.g. deformation monitoring) can detect millimetre-scale movements over large areas, supporting:
· identification of zones with unusual displacement,
· prioritisation of detailed inspections, and
· long-term trend analysis for risk management.
What is the challenge?
In some regions, sea ice formation and drift create hazards for vessels, infrastructure and navigation channels.
Current practice & limitations
Ports rely on public information, forecasts and occasional observations. These sources may have limited temporal or spatial resolution and can become outdated quickly.
How EO can help
EO can provide frequent, wide-area observations of sea ice, supporting:
· mapping of ice extent and concentration,
· identification of hazardous zones, and
· better-informed decisions on navigation and operations in icy conditions.
What is the challenge?
Modern port operations increasingly depend on GNSS-based positioning. However, signal availability and quality can be affected by urban canyons, infrastructure and radio-frequency interference (RFI).
Current practice & limitations
Issues are often detected only when operations are disturbed, and characterising the problem over space and time can be difficult and resource-intensive.
How EO-related approaches can help
EO-related and space-based monitoring of GNSS signal conditions and RFI can help:
· map areas with reduced GNSS reliability,
· identify potential interference sources or patterns, and
· support decisions on alternative positioning solutions or infrastructure adaptations.
What is the challenge?
In emergencies (e.g., spills, accidents, extreme events), ports need rapid situational awareness over potentially large and complex areas.
Current practice & limitations
Traditional approaches rely on on-the-ground teams, local sensors and aerial assets, which can be constrained by access, safety and cost, and may not cover the full scene quickly.
How EO can help
EO can support rapid mapping and situational assessment, particularly when combined with in-situ information, by:
· providing a broader overview of the affected area,
· helping to prioritise response actions, and
· documenting the evolution of the event for later analysis.
Beyond safety and environment, ports also face challenges related to economic performance, efficiency and competitiveness.
What is the challenge?
Biofouling on infrastructure and vessels affects operational efficiency, maintenance costs and environmental performance.
Current practice & limitations
Assessment is often based on visual inspections and maintenance records, which are time-consuming and can miss spatial patterns.
How EO can help
While biofouling remains mainly a local issue, EO-derived information on water conditions, temperature and biological activity can help identify areas and periods with higher fouling risk, improving planning and resource allocation.
What is the challenge?
Ports need better visibility of supply chain flows, both for operational planning and for demonstrating sustainability and resilience.
Current practice & limitations
Information often comes from separate systems (e.g. AIS, port community systems, logistics platforms) that can be fragmented and difficult to integrate spatially.
How EO can help
EO, especially when combined with AIS and other data sources, can provide a spatial context for flows and operations, supporting:
visualisation of traffic patterns,
identification of bottlenecks or congestion zones, and
analysis of how changes in infrastructure or policy affect flows over time.
What is the challenge?
Ports and associated logistics zones are constantly evolving. Understanding how land is used and how it changes is vital for investment planning, capacity analysis and stakeholder communication.
Current practice & limitations
Change analysis often relies on manual comparison of maps, drone imagery and in-situ observations, which is resource-intensive and can be infrequent.
How EO can help
EO-based land use / land cover mapping and change detection can systematically track:
expansion or transformation of port areas,
changes in adjacent urban or natural zones, and
the interaction between port development and its surroundings.
Ports sit at the frontline of climate impacts, particularly along coasts exposed to sea-level rise and extreme weather.
What is the challenge?
Ports need a better understanding of long-term sea level trends and variability, which affect infrastructure design, operations and safety margins.
Current practice & limitations
Information is often derived from tide gauges, public data and reports. While valuable, these can have limited spatial coverage and may not fully capture local variations.
How EO can help
EO and related space-based measurements can contribute to:
improved understanding of regional sea level patterns,
integration of local observations with broader climate signals, and
more informed adaptation and investment planning.
What is the challenge?
Increasingly frequent and intense storms, heatwaves and other extreme events impact port operations, safety and infrastructure.
Current practice & limitations
Ports rely on public forecasts, early warning systems and local observation networks, which do not always provide the granularity or lead time needed at the local scale, and can be resource-intensive to maintain.
How EO can help
EO and related services can support:
improved monitoring of precursors and impacts (e.g. flooding, storm surges, coastal erosion),
better post-event assessment for recovery and planning, and
integration of historical EO data into risk and resilience analyses.