We explain what water transportation is, its advantages, disadvantages and what types exist. Additionally, air and land transportation.
What is water transportation?
Water transport or naval transport is that which uses vehicles capable of moving on and in waterthat is, some type of boat. This also includes the facilities and infrastructure necessary to carry out the movement of passengers or cargo in this way, such as ports and facilities such as lighthouses.
water transport It is one of humanity's first forms of transportationwhose beginnings took place on the coasts of rivers, lakes or seas. Traveling over water allowed ancient civilizations to encounter other cultures and exchange merchandise with them easily and quickly.
In history, it often meant the determining element in the growth and diversification of the economy and culture of certain civilizations. And even today, water transportation plays an equally important role in the flow of raw materials and manufactured products of the global economy.
See also:
- Cargo transportation
- Rail transport
- Multimodal transport
History of water transport
For most of human history, from the first ships to the Industrial Revolution, water transportation was the primary means of transportation on a large scale and over long distances.
The first people to engage in maritime trade were the Phoenicians. (1200 years BC) in the Mediterranean, creators of a true naval commercial empire that attracted the rivalry of ancient Rome.
Many important milestones of humanity are due to water exploration and transportation. Cartographic development, the cultural exchange sustained for centuries between the West and the East, or even the discovery of America in the 15th century, are the result of the improvement of different aquatic vehicles.
However, Modern boats emerged during the Industrial Revolution (18th to 19th centuries), as a consequence of the invention of the steam engine.
The steamship, together with the railway, forever revolutionized the way humanity transports itself, opening the door to future naval advances, once the science of combustion and petrochemistry had been conquered.
Nowadays there are not only boats and cargo vessels, but also sailboats, motorboats and even jet skis (hydrobikes). Thanks to these we can move on the surface of the water. Finally, submarines are added to this list, with the exception that they go underwater and have mostly tactical or military purposes, rather than civil ones.
Types of water transport
There are two fundamental types of water transport:
- Maritime transport. That which takes place in seas, maritime channels and oceans, connecting two land masses.
- River transport. That which takes place in rivers, lakes, lagoons and river channels, or in other continental inland bodies of water.
Advantages of water transport
Water transportation has been, since its beginnings, a fundamental activity of humanity, in its different possibilities. First of all, because allows the transfer of large quantities of materials or passengersfrom port to port, crossing kilometers of oceans or rivers.
Furthermore, they are a transport relatively comfortable and reliable. In fact, shipwrecks are, today, less frequent than plane accidents and certainly less dramatic.
On the other hand, water transport played a key role in economic globalizationas part of the dynamics of colonization and extraction of raw materials to which the European powers subjected the rest of the world during the 15th to 19th centuries. Thus he sowed the seeds of future globalization.
Likewise, its appearance allowed migratory exchange (and with it cultural, social, etc.), made possible in more or less massive terms. All this makes water transport enjoy an importance that many other forms of transportation lack.
Disadvantages of water transport
The disadvantages of water transport have to do, in principle, with its slowness, compared at least to air and rail transport. cargo ships They are generally bulky and slow vehiclesalthough relatively safe.
On the other hand, there is the possibility of accidents and shipwrecksas is evident in the frequent cases of tankers and oil transports that run aground or break up and spread their cargo everywhere, causing serious ecological consequences.
Air transport
Air transport is that which occurs through vehicles capable of crossing the airthat is, to fly. We are talking, therefore, about airplanes, light aircraft and similar transport, mainly intended for the transport of passengers, but with notable adaptations for the movement of cargo, in specialized bulky airplanes.
air transport It is the most recent form of transportationthe most expensive and the one that involves the most cutting-edge technology.
Ground transportation
If water transport takes place on water, land transport is the one that moves on the earththat is, on the continental surface.
This requires land vehicles equipped with wheels (trucks, automobiles, etc.) or that run on rails (such as railways), capable of reaching high speeds, depending on their nature, although always faced with the geographical features of the Earth's crust. , as well as rivers, oceans and lakes.
Continue in: Land transport
References
- “Naval transport” in Wikipedia.
- “Water transportation” in Salón Hogar Project.
- “Water transport: evolution of boats” in ICARITO.
- “Water transport” at the National Institute of Educational Technologies and Teacher Training (INTEF) of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training of Spain.
