A Basic Study on Marine Traffic Assessment in Mombasa Approach Channel-I

Mombasa is the principle port of Kenya, serving hinter countries in Eastern and central Africa. Mombasa port has undergone a massive infrastructure upgrade and dredging works with an expectation that more vessels and large post Panamax ships will be able to call at Mombasa port. Therefore, it is vital to carry out a marine traffic risk assessment so as to quantify the degree of navigation safety on Mombasa approach channel and also to evaluate navigation risk imposed on transit traffic by local ferry traffic. In this paper marine traffic risk assessment is carried out using IWRAP mk2, Environmental Stress model, and PARK model. Risk assessment results show that Likoni area has unacceptable stress/ risk ranking at 20.7% on ES model and 38.89% by PARK model. IWRAP mk2 model shows that crossing area has the highest risk of crossing collision and the area at the entrance to inner channel has a high risk of grounding. The conclusions derived from this study will provide the basis for proposing the most effective countermeasure so as to improve navigation safety in Mombasa approach channel.