Proceedings of the
European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL2026)
14 – 19 June 2026, Braga, Portugal
Dynamic Risk Assessment for Resilient Port Operations under Increasing Extreme Weather Conditions
Department of Microsystems, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway.
Department of Maritime Operations, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway.
Department of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Aalto University, Finland.
Department of Maritime Operations, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway.
aDepartment of Maritime Operations, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway.
bDepartment of Materials and Production, Aalborg University, Denmark.
ABSTRACT
In the last decade, many European ports are increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions that disrupt logistics flows, reduce operational efficiency, and challenge safety management. As these disruptions become more frequent and less predictable, maintaining resilient port operations requires a shift from traditional static assessments toward more adaptive and time sensitive approaches. This study presents a dynamic risk assessment approach that updates disruption estimates over time as weather conditions deteriorate and operational constraints tighten. The approach is illustrated using available operational information from the ports of Lisbon, Seville, and Dunkirk, and provides a reusable template intended for port specific instantiation under weather related disruption. To support this analysis, a Bayesian Network (BN) model is employed to represent probabilistic relationships between performance deviations, preparedness conditions, and disruption states. The BN outputs are passed to simulation models to assess the potential capacity impact of the relevant risk and to identify bottlenecks. These bottlenecks and capacity reduction are then used in the optimization models to support mitigation planning for capacity loss. Selected plans and resource allocations can then be fed back to the risk layer as updates to controllable conditions for the next update step. Through this interaction among risk assessment, simulation, and optimization models, the overall decision-making process can become more adaptive and resilient to uncertain weather-related disruptions. By combining operational conditions with simulation and optimization outputs, the proposed approach supports short-term actions such as traffic sequence adjustment and temporary capacity adjustments, while also supporting long-term planning related to operational preparedness and infrastructure robustness. Overall, the study contributes to efforts to enhance port operational resilience by providing probabilistic disruption estimates and a structured interface for scenario evaluation and resource allocation under extreme weather.
Keywords: Dynamic risk assessment, Resilience, port operations, extreme weather.
