Myanmar faces issues to utilise their river system for inland waterway transport since navigation is unsafe and many areas are less accessible for longer periods throughout the year. Most of the country’s larger rivers are characterised by a dynamic meandering and braiding nature. This entails fast and unpredictable fairway channel migrations, which can shift hundreds of meters within one dry and wet season. This is mainly due to intense precipitation during the monsoon period, followed by a very dry season, with high water levels during the monsoon and very low water levels during the dry season and water level differences up to 10m. Navigation is significantly hampered because of these constantly changing conditions and limited river training works, ultimately risking (fatal) accidents by grounding vessels. Navigation with Nature® offers a commercial solution to this problem, by ensuring continuous safe navigation with the use of the CoVadem (Cooperative Navigation Depth Measurement) technology, applied to vessels operating on the river. It delivers safe and optimal routing for inland waterway transport along highly dynamic rivers by displaying present and forecasted water depths in real-time and as such reducing investment cost in fixed interventions like e.g. (expensive) river training works.

The forecast is made available by means of a mobile application that can be accessed by fleet operators and captains during operations. Such solution minimizes the need for river training works (e.g. groynes or dredging) and aids to navigation (e.g. buoys), which are very costly, particularly in a dynamic river. It enables building with nature concepts to be employed and reduces the need for regular maintenance as part of an overall integrated approach of increasing smooth, cost effective and safe navigation. In addition, since the Navigation with Nature® concept is providing information of the navigable channels real‐time, it will allow DWIR to monitor their system on a daily basis and can act swiftly at those areas where it is needed immediately and/or prepare plans for improvement works. By using the Navigation with Nature® Concept, DWIR could also reduce cost for surveys because DWIR will have a clear picture of the bottlenecks on a regular interval and can pro‐actively plan e.g. dredging works and/or river training works.

Period of involvement of Delta Context: May 2020 – December 2021