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Ports and Harbors | |||
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Harbors include entrance channels, interior channels to allow movement to anchoring areas or turning basins, and support facilities for refueling and repairing vessels. Harbors can be located either on the coast such as the harbor at Long Beach, California, located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean or on inland water bodies such as the harbor at Chicago,Illinois, located on Lake Michigan. Ports are transfer hubs for trade and are usually built near natural harbors, but they can also be located hundreds of miles up rivers or lakes. For example, in Texas, the Port of Corpus Christi is located along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. About 320 kilometers or 200 miles north is the Port of Houston, a 40-kilometer long complex of public and private facilities located inland along the Houston Ship Channel. The ports and harbors are constructed to transfer goods between water and land. Harbors are classified according to their location and structure. A natural coastal harbor is formed by a bay New York City, for example or by an offshore barrier such as an island like Hong Kong in China. A coastal breakwater harbor Casablanca, Morocco is sheltered by one or more man-made breakwaters. A tide gate harbor has locks that enclose areas of the harbor at high tide.
The development of a harbor into an economically thriving port depends upon several basic conditions. The contiguous land areas should be suitable for piers, wharves, loading and unloading facilities, and warehouses. The surrounding region should be geographically favorable to the development of a population center and supporting industries, such as railroads. In most ports and harbors, we find concrete forming the main structural body of quays, either in the form of caissons, block work or diaphragm walls structures. Even where other forms of construction are used to form the substructure, concrete is invariably used for the decks of these quays. The ports and harbors form as a halting point for major ships of the world. Rotterdam is the world's busiest port. The city's center was devastated by German and Allied bombing during World War II. Its development was favored by its commercially strategic location on the Rhine River delta some 15 miles from the North Sea. Today most cargo entering Rotterdam from the sea by way of a ship canal passes on to Europe's interior. When a harbor, or portions of it, are utilized by the military services for similar functions, it is designated as a "military harbor." Military harbors generally include the land side areas that provide functional support to waterborne naval activity. In these cases, they are variously termed as naval base, naval station, naval depot, and naval shipyard, depending upon the support activity involved. For more info on ports and harbors browse through the following pages : |
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