- What is water transport?
- History of water transport
- Types of water transport
- Advantages of water transport
- Disadvantages of water transport
- Air Transport
- Ground transportation
We explain what water transport is, its advantages, disadvantages and what types exist. In addition, air and land transportation.
Water transport is one of the safest that exists.What is water transport?
Water transport or naval transport is one that uses vehicles capable of moving on and in the Water, that is, some kind of boat. This also includes facilities and infrastructures necessary to carry out the movement of passengers or cargo in this way, such as ports and facilities such as lighthouses.
Water transport is one of the first forms of transport in the humanity, whose beginnings took place on the shores of rivers, lakes or seas. The displacement on the water allowed ancient civilizations to meet other cultures and exchange merchandise with them easily and quickly.
In the history, often meant the determining element in the growth and diversification of the economy Y culture of certain civilizations. And even today, water transport plays an equally important role in the flow of cities. raw Materials and the products drawn from the global economy.
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History of water transport
For most of human history, from the earliest ships to the Industrial Revolution, water transport was the main means of transport on a large scale and over long distances.
The first peoples 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 exploration and water transport. The cartographic development, the cultural exchange sustained for centuries between the West and the East, or even the discovery of America in the 15th century, they are the result of the improvement of the different aquatic vehicles.
However, modern boats emerged during the Industrial Revolution (18th to 19th centuries), as a consequence of the invention of the machine of steam.
The steamship, along with the railroad, forever revolutionized the way humanity is transported, opening the door to future naval advancements once the science of the combustion and petrochemicals.
Nowadays there are not only ships and cargo boats, but also sailboats, motorboats and even jet skis (hydromotos). Thanks to these we can move on the surface of the water. Finally, submarines are added to that list, with the exception that they go under water and have mostly tactical or military purposes, rather than civilians.
Types of water transport
There are two fundamental types of water transport:
- Marine 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 fluvial channels, or in other continental interior water bodies.
Advantages of water transport
Water transport has been, since its inception, a fundamental activity of humanity, in its different possibilities. In the first place, because it allows the transfer of large quantities of materials or passengers, from port to port, crossing kilometers of oceans or rivers.
In addition, they are a relatively comfortable and reliable transport. In fact, shipwrecks are, today, less frequent than plane crashes and certainly less dramatic.
On the other hand, water transport played a key role in economic globalization, as part of the dynamics of colonization and extraction of raw materials to which the powers Europeans subdued the rest of the world during the 15th to 19th centuries. Thus sowed the seeds of the future globalization.
In the same way, 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 with air and rail transport. Cargo ships are generally bulky and slow vehicles, although relatively safe.
On the other hand, there is the possibility of accidents and shipwrecks, as is evident in the frequent cases of tankers and transports of Petroleum that run aground or break down and scatter their cargo everywhere, causing serious ecological consequences.
Air Transport
Air transport is that which is carried out by vehicles capable of navigating the air, that is, to fly. We are talking, then, of airplanes, light aircraft and similar transports, mainly destined to the transport of passengers, but with notable adaptations for the movement of cargo, in specialized bulky airplanes.
Air transport is the most recent of the forms of transport, the most expensive and the most technology of tip involves.
Ground transportation
If water transport takes place in water, land transport is that which moves on land, that 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 facing the geographical accidents of the Earth crustas well as rivers, oceans and lakes.