Coastal & Marine

The sustainable development of coastal areas, large scale infrastructure development - including ports, harbours and terminal master planning, container, bulk and break handling facilities, maritime and offshore structures, is an area that is still seeing increasing investment. Most of the world's port authorities and shipping operators are retaining their plans for expansion despite the global recession. Schemes are continuing to move forwards with plans to build new infrastructure and more operational superstructure for containers and bulk capacity. Some very large schemes are underway particularly in Europe with London Gateway Port and the Wilhelmshaven Container Port in Northern Germany.

The United States, Africa, Latin America and India are also investing billions of dollars into port developments and terminal upgrades. Most of these global projects are long term schemes which require years of planning, design, funding, land acquisition and construction.

One of the reasons for the growth is this sector is that of Import and Export. The import and Export industry is continuing to expand particularly in developing nations. This increase is creating a huge demand for container shipping resulting in new ports being developed. South East Asia, The Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Australia all continue to pursue ports sector growth.

The change in Shipping trends and the increasing size of these container ships is also having an impact this sector. As these vessels are increasing in size massive dredges are being constructed to make approach channels navigable and provide deep berthing. This dredging will be a major hub port activity globally.

The building on these container ports and this increased activity in dredging along with the associated infrastructure will result in the increased need for very specialist skill sets from specialist engineering staff, geotechnical and land contamination skills, to senior level leadership to manage these overall projects