Climate change and marine transportation on the St. Lawrence River : Changements climatiques et transport maritime sur le Saint-Laurent : étude exploratoire d'options d'adaptation

This document is the fruit of an initial examination of certain potential technical and logistical adaptation strategies designed to address the impact of climate change on commercial shipping. This initiative arose from what the Navigation Consensus Building Committee recognizes as a real issue in the Sustainable Navigation Strategy for the St. Lawrence River. However, before seeking to confront situations of sustained low water levels using adaptation responses that involve the St. Lawrence River itself, directly and exclusively, and call on its unique resources and on those of its physical and human environments, it is presumed that recourse must first be sought in the opportunities offered by the management of the Great Lake-St. Lawrence System and particularly those available through the Moses-Saunders dam. The determination and analysis of these opportunities exceed both the framework of this study and the means available for it and are thus not part of it. Consequently, the absence or the more or less abundant quantity of information on any given option must not be interpreted as a position being taken in its regard.