Most port infrastructure projects are large scale, and have a long life-time during
which they are confronted with multiple uncertainties. Many of these can be dealt
with reasonably using standard management practices. However, some uncertainties
such as future demand, shipping traffic and future technology are difficult to forecast.
If these uncertainties are not taken into account during planning, the resulting
infrastructures may not be functional in a new or different future. This paper suggests
that standard ‘project’ or ‘risk’ management practices are not adequate to deal with
exogenous uncertainties which can form vulnerabilities for a project. It proposes
Adaptive Port Planning (APP), an approach that offers a unified approach for
strategic planning and risk management, and guides planners to systematically deal
with uncertainties that appear over the lifetime of an infrastructure project. APP is a
dynamic and effective management tool that can provide structure during realization
and exploitation phases of a civil engineering project