In this report from Maritime Global News, the National Waterways Foundation outlines the economic benefits of improving the US inland waterway system, including the Atlantic and Gulf Intracoastal Waterways. Now, if only state legislatures would pay heed to these well-studied recommendations!

Study Examines Impacts of Inland Waterway Investment
The National Waterways Foundation (NWF) has commissioned and released a two-year study to examine the U.S. inland waterways’ national economic return on investment and the need for and benefits of an accelerated program of waterways system improvements that sustain and create American jobs.
The study, conducted by the University of Tennessee and the University of Kentucky and entitled “Inland Navigation in the United States: An Evaluation of Economic Impacts and the Potential Effects of Infrastructure Investment” (November 2014), evaluates the inland navigation system as it is currently funded and configured, and as it might be through renewed infrastructure investment. The study begins with a basic analytical framework examining navigation’s role as a productive input in various industrial processes and reflects actual, real-world economic interactions and consequences if the system were to suddenly shut down and then if proper infrastructure investments were made.

Click here to read the full report.