Sector Briefing: Beyond Seawalls: The role of technology in supporting Ports, Harbors, and Marinas (PHMs) adapt to risk in our new climate reality

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In the past five years, climate-driven disasters have made clear how exposed Ports, Harbors, and Marinas (PHMs) are to water extremes. Hurricane Ian in 2022 caused billions in damage to Florida’s marinas and coastal ports through storm surge. Europe’s 2021 floods along the Rhine forced river harbors offline, disrupting inland shipping for weeks. In the Great Lakes, record-high water levels in 2019 and 2020 submerged docks and eroded shorelines, leaving marinas and small harbors with staggering repair costs. These events are not anomalies—they are symptoms of a new hydrological reality, where pluvial (rain-driven) and fluvial (river-driven) flooding, compounded by sea-level rise, shifting tidal currents, and stronger cyclones, are straining infrastructure built for another century’s climate.

SNAPSHOT OF CONTENT

What Are PHMs? Scale and Ownership

PHMs span global shipping ports, regional harbors, and recreational marinas. China dominates the world’s largest container facilities, but in Europe and North America, major examples include Rotterdam, Antwerp-Bruges, Hamburg, Felixstowe, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Savannah, and New York/New Jersey—critical hubs in global trade.

Beyond mega-ports, there are roughly 30,000 marinas and yacht harbors worldwide, offering an estimated five million berths and one million moorings. Most are coastal, but tens of thousands of freshwater marinas dot lakes and rivers in regions like North America and Europe. Ownership is mixed: large commercial ports are usually publicly owned by municipal, state, or national governments, while marinas are often private or community-owned, with terminal operations frequently leased to private operators.

Consultancy expertise is deep and global. Firms such as Moffatt & Nichol, Royal HaskoningDHV, Arup, WSP, BMT Group, and Ramboll specialize in coastal and marine infrastructure design and adaptation. Thousands of smaller firms worldwide serve PHMs directly and are actively seeking technology partners to help clients meet their resilience goals.

Coastal Risks: Storm Surges, Hurricanes, Sea-Level Rise, and Shifting Currents

Ocean-facing PHMs face a perfect storm of hazards. Sea-level rise lifts the baseline water level, so even moderate surges now inundate seawalls, fueling stations, and cargo yards. Hurricanes and cyclones, powered by warmer oceans, bring stronger winds and higher surges that overwhelm defenses. Compound flooding—where heavy rainfall coincides with high tides—has become more frequent and devastating. Meanwhile, tidal currents are shifting, altering sediment flows and reshaping harbors in ways existing infrastructure cannot manage, forcing more frequent dredging and redesign.

It's not only the large ports that are at risk, there are tens of thousands of smaller harbors and marinas that face existential risks going forward.

Freshwater Risks: Fluvial Extremes and Pluvial Shocks

Inland PHMs face increasingly volatile fluvial and pluvial hazards. Larger snowpacks followed by rapid thaws send torrents downstream, breaching levees and flooding riverside harbors. Intense storm cells drop months of rain in days, overwhelming rivers and inland lakes. Floodwaters bring debris and sediment that damage docks, pile up in navigation channels, and shorten the usable lifespan of critical infrastructure.

Degraded Landscapes Amplify Flooding

Flood volumes are amplified by degraded watersheds. Burn scars from wildfires, forests hollowed out by invasive pests, and widespread deforestation all reduce the land’s ability to absorb rainfall. Instead of percolating into soils, rainwater races directly into rivers, lakes, and estuaries, increasing turbidity and unleashing more destructive flows on PHM infrastructure.

Built for Yesterday’s Water Levels

Most PHM infrastructure was designed around historical rainfall, tides, and river flow data. Those baselines no longer apply. Breakwaters, levees, bulkheads, and moorings are already being overtopped, undermined, or destroyed by the new normal. Policy and regulation have roles to play, but their timelines are far too slow to protect lives and livelihoods from risks already escalating.

This type of calamity is not new; however, will be more common and more widespread than before

An Overlooked Corner of Climate Adaptation

PHMs represent one of the most overlooked corners of climate adaptation. Because the “water industry” is often defined as drinking water utilities, wastewater systems, and industrial processes, PHMs fall outside the frame. Yet they are fundamentally about water risk—and resilience spending for PHMs is expected to rise sharply in the coming decade. For investors, this creates a compelling opportunity: a massive sector, central to trade and recreation, with enormous exposure to climate-driven risk but relatively little adaptation investment to date.

Technology Is the Lifeline

Concrete solutions—seawalls, levees, breakwaters, and earthworks—remain important, but they are slow, costly, and only as effective as the information guiding them. What PHMs need most is Industry 4.0 adaptation technology:

• Data-producing tools such as satellites, buoys, drones, and dockside sensor networks that generate high-resolution spatial and temporal data.

  
  

• Data-consuming tools such as machine learning, digital twins, and advanced hydrological models that turn raw data into predictive insights about storm surges, erosion patterns, and infrastructure stress points.

Recent breakthroughs in data science and advanced analytics will support owners/operators or PHMs prepare-for, adjust-to, and ultimately deal-with our new climate reality

This combination enables PHMs to shift from reactive crisis response to predictive adaptation, targeting investments where they matter most and avoiding catastrophic failures. This is the largest section of the report.

What’s the VC Play Here?

For climate adaptation VCs, PHMs offer fertile ground. Startups that give owners/operators (and their consultants) greater visibility and control over water-related risks will find steady demand as PHMs are forced to adapt. Industry 4.0 solutions—real-time sensing, predictive analytics, decision-support platforms—fit squarely into this need. And the exit pathways are clear: over the next decade, private equity roll-ups and corporate M&A will be active buyers of proven solutions. That makes PHMs not just an urgent adaptation priority, but also a practical and profitable thesis for early-stage investors.

Investor Sidebar: The Scale of the Opportunity

• The value of physical assets at risk across global PHMs is measured in the trillions of dollars when considering ports, harbors, marinas, and their critical trade and recreational functions.

• The annual cost of extreme weather damages to ports alone already runs into the tens of billions, with the World Bank estimating that climate-related disruptions could add $25–40 billion annually by 2030 if no adaptation is undertaken.

• With 30,000 marinas and harbors worldwide and thousands of commercial ports, even incremental adoption of sensing, analytics, and adaptive design technologies represents a multi-billion-dollar TAM.

• Importantly for VC investors, this is not about long-cycle infrastructure finance. The opportunity lies in scalable technology platforms—software, sensors, analytics, and decision-support systems—that can plug into existing infrastructure, scale across geographies, and be acquired by corporates or rolled up into PE portfolios.

Mazarine's Point of View

PHMs are already being hit hard by our climate-change-induced 'too much water' problem, and the risks will only escalate in our new hydrological reality. Policy responses are too slow; adaptation must be led by owners/operators leveraging technology now. Those who act will protect infrastructure, safeguard trade, and preserve livelihoods. Those who wait will be left with wreckage.

Contact Mazarine here for the full report if this is a realm of Climate Adaptation that overlaps with your focus. We welcome partnerships.