A Ports and Waterways Safety Assessment (PAWSA) is a discussion forum facilitated by the United States Coast Guard Navigation Center (NAVCEN) to analyze the state of a port or waterway as it relates to navigation, vessel traffic, and physical attributes of the waterway. A successful workshop requires the collaboration between various stakeholders such as waterway users, environmental interest groups and local law enforcement. Without involving the relevant parties and encouraging their insight, the USCG risks creating an incomplete understanding of the port’s dynamic.
This project examines the characteristics of eight ports across the U.S. to determine which is in most need of a PAWSA. NAVCEN is limited to conducting three to five PAWSAs per year and seeks to maximize the efficacy of the workshops by traveling to the ports that need them the most. A customizable decision support tool based on quantitative factors was created to modernize NAVCEN’s current decision-making process for assigning ports PAWSAs. Tools such as ArcGIS Pro and Python were used
