Port
Ports can have a wide environmental impact on local ecologies and waterways, most importantly water quality, which can be caused by dredging, spills and other pollution.
In Ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BCE.
In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhal region of the modern state of Gujarāt.
In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year, whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice.
Ostia is now a large archaeological site noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics.
The city's decline after antiquity led to harbor deterioration, marshy conditions, and reduced population.
As in Pompeii, Ostia's ruins provide details about Roman urbanism that are not accessible within the city of Rome itself.
Uniformly scattered across the Italian peninsula, the maritime republics were important not only for the history of navigation and commerce: in addition to precious goods otherwise unobtainable in Europe, new artistic ideas and news concerning distant countries also spread.
From the 10th century, they built fleets of ships both for their own protection and to support extensive trade networks across the Mediterranean, giving them an essential role in reestablishing contacts between Europe, Asia, and Africa, which had been interrupted during the early Middle Ages.
They also had an essential role in the Crusades and produced renowned explorers and navigators such as Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus.
Meanwhile, Venice began its gradual ascent, while the other cities were still experiencing the long gestation that would lead them to their autonomy and to follow up on their seafaring vocation.
Pisa followed and experienced its most flourishing period in the 13th century, and Ancona and Ragusa allied to resist Venetian power.
Ideally, a port will grant easy navigation to ships, and will give shelter from wind and waves.
Other businesses such as regional distribution centres, warehouses and freight-forwarders, canneries and other processing facilities find it advantageous to be located within a port or nearby.
Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks.
Some third world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch (respectively).
Once airliner traffic decimated that trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships.
An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Toronto, Duluth-Superior, and Chicago.
Such settlements as Narvik in Norway, Dalian in China, Murmansk, Novorossiysk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Vostochny Port[26] in Russia, Odesa in Ukraine, Kushiro in Japan and Valdez at the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline owe their very existence to being ice-free ports.
[27] A smart port uses technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) to be more efficient at handling goods.
However, thanks to global government initiatives and exponential growth in maritime trade, the number of intelligent ports has gradually increased.
A report by business intelligence provider Visiongain assessed that Smart Ports Market spending would reach $1.5 bn in 2019.
[31] Every year 100 million cubic metres of marine sediment are dredged to improve waterways around ports.
Transportation corridors around ports have higher exhaust emissions and this can have related health effects on local communities.
It is followed by the ports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, all of which are in East and Southeast Asia.
