shipping channels
Vessel traffic routes
Shipping channels are navigable waterways—natural or dredged—through which commercial vessels travel.
Major ports maintain shipping channels of specific depths to accommodate large cargo ships: The channel was dredged to forty feet.
The term also refers to the routes themselves: The Suez Canal is one of the world's busiest shipping channels.
In commerce, shipping channels can mean the distribution pathways through which goods move from producer to consumer.
- straitConstricted marine passage
- narrow passageConfined path between barriers
- deep waterSignificantly submerged aquatic zone
- buoyTethered nautical signal
- dredgerVessel that removes sediment
maritime law · canal · estuary · lighthouse · coast guard · freight · fjord · pollution control · delta · tidal flow · sedimentation · passage · right of way · trade route · sea level rise · erosion · lock · customs procedures
- infrastructurehighways, road construction, railway expansion, power grid, roads
- Channelsradio station, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox
- navigationcompass, compass rose, signs, charts, navbar
- waterwaysriver, rivers, canal, canals, stream
- sea routesNorthwest Passage, sea routes, Northeast Passage, ocean routes, sea lanes
- Dutch DeltaRhine, estuaries