Ballast Water Management Options in Ports

The Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention requires vessels to discharge ballast water according to its requirements, and with this, vessels are obliged to manage the ballast water to be discharged properly. However, due to different reasons, ballast water may not be managed properly. The reasons may be numerous but commonly include technical failures of the Ballast Water Management System (BWMS) or inclement weather. The BWM Convention requires port State authorities not to allow ballast water discharge in such cases. If this is the case, port State authorities would need to have an adequate alternative management option to offer. So far, different BWM options are considered in the relevant literature but also examined in practice. Although underlying technologies are almost identical to those implemented onboard merchant ships, the necessary conditions, requirements, and business models are significantly different when comparing onboard solutions with port-based BWM options. Therefore, this chapter discusses the conditions, requirements, and economic viability of these alternatives.