As a part of the Egyptian Government's future plan to develop the Northwest of the Gulf of Suez by
constructing a 232 km² complete commercial and industrial zone, it was necessary to build a new state-of-the-art
port in the Elsukhna area with all facilities to serve the zone. The area of land allocated for the port is over 23.3 km²,
to be used for container handling, general cargo and dry/liquid bulk. This project required numerous studies in order
to develop a successful design. Comprehensive layout evaluations and studies were performed prior to the
construction of the port, including the use of mathematical models to ensure suitable protection from waves to the
berthing and tug basin as well as the wave generation in the Gulf of Suez and wave propagation from a zone
offshore from the Elsukhna area to the breakwaters, inner basin and quays. One of the major design studies was
the study of the behaviour of the shoreline and the coastal structures to wave action to ensure minimum effects on
the environment.
After the port was constructed in 2001, field monitoring was on going for five years to study the impact of the
port and the behaviour of the different components.
In this study, the field survey and measurements were analyzed, evaluated and compared with original
design data. It was concluded that there were few changes to the coastline as predicted by the detailed design, and
it was noticed that there were indeed minimum effects on the coastal structures themselves. |
