Arctic shipping at a crossroads: Safety, sustainability and sovereignty

Landscape of towering glaciers and shimmering icebergs set against a backdrop of overcast skies. An icy research station is in the foreground

UBC Applied Science is pioneering Arctic Research and Development activities in Western Canada, leveraging its multidisciplinary expertise, Pacific gateway location and established Indigenous partnerships.

As vessel traffic in the Arctic increases due to climate change and shifting global trade routes, Canada faces urgent questions: How do we ensure northern shipping is safe, quieter for marine life, energy-efficient and aligned with Indigenous priorities? The answers are central not only to environmental protection and community well-being, but also to Canada’s Arctic sovereignty and strategic presence.

The Clean Arctic Shipping Initiative is a multi-partner program developing advanced ship designs and operational technologies. UBC is a key partner, with Dr. Rajeev Jaiman and Dr. Jasmin Jelovica leading work that will see the co-development of decision-support tools with Inuit partners to create a framework for safer, quieter, and more environmentally responsible Arctic shipping.

We talked to Dr. Jaiman about his research and how it supports the future of Arctic shipping and marine engineering. Dr. Jaiman is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, NSERC/Seaspan Industrial Research Chair in Intelligent and Green Marine Vessels, and leader of UBC’s Computational Multiphysics Laboratory.

Computational Multiphysics Laboratory

Tell us about the main areas of your research.

There is significant national interest in the Arctic related to sovereignty and security. As vessel traffic increases, so does the need for technologies and practices that ensure shipping is safe for people, quiet for marine mammals and energy efficient in challenging ice-covered waters.

We are working with colleagues at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Inuit communities and industry partners to explore three interconnected areas:

ship-ice safety and structural response;
underwater radiated noise and its impact on marine ecosystems; and
energy efficiency and emissions reduction.

With northern routes becoming more accessible due to climate change, it is more important than ever to ensure vessels are optimally designed and operated to reduce impacts, including noise generation. Further, any damage to ships that occurs in the north can have far-reaching consequences for remote coastal communities where fragile ecosystems and limited emergency response capabilities make even minor incidents disproportionately harmful.

Although the maritime industry has deep knowledge of how ships operate in open water, far less is known about how ships behave in ice.

Our research aims to bridge that gap to make sure we are designing and operating ships so that they can travel safely and efficiently in icy environments and in different kinds of ice.

What specific questions are you trying to answer?

I am particularly interested in the hydrodynamic forces involved in ship-ice interaction and their noise signatures. This includes noise generated from hull-ice contact during ice breaking, underwater radiated noise and its effects on mammals and ecosystems, and the structural impacts of hulls and propellers.

In ice-covered waters, acoustic propagation changes significantly. Ice sheets and fragmented floes can trap and scatter sound, extending its range and altering frequency characteristics. These effects may amplify disturbances for belugas and other marine mammals that rely on sound for communication and navigation.

As such, my research centres on building predictive models of ship-ice interactions, including noise generation.

To address this, we are building a comprehensive physics-based and AI-enabled framework to predict underwater noise from ice-ship interactions. We can then use this information to mitigate these effects – through new designs for propellers and hulls as well as in ship operations.

Ideally, these models will then be validated through testing in specialized facilities or in open water Arctic environments to close the current research gap. They will then form part of the decision-support tools and dashboards that operators can use real-time digital decision-support tools that integrate ship design parameters, operational speed, ice conditions and predicted acoustic footprint. These tools allow operators to balance safety, fuel efficiency and ecological protection in a transparent and adaptive way.

How might these models be used?

Ultimately, we want to design better ships. To handle many different types of ice, current Arctic vessels tend to rely on thick steel plates – which are also expensive, heavy and bulky. The information generated by our models can be used to adjust current design choices with the aim of reducing construction and operational costs.

Our models can also support classification societies that certify ship designs to ensure they meet international safety and engineering standards. We hope that these science-based predictions will help accelerate the design and certification process.

Tell us about your partnerships with industry

We are collaborating with Seaspan Shipyards, Robert Allan Naval Architects and Marine Engineers and Vard Marine on next-generation polar vessel concepts. This work builds on earlier projects supported through Transport Canada’s Quiet Vessel Initiative, where our team demonstrated measurable reductions in propeller-induced underwater noise for offshore fisheries science vessels (OFSVs) and tugboats in active service. The underlying design methodologies and predictive tools are now being extended to Arctic applications, including vessels operating in the Port of Churchill and other northern corridors.

Seaspan Shipyards Vard Marine

Robert Allan Naval Architects and Marine Engineers

What about your partnerships with Inuit communities?

One of our goals is to co-develop decision-support tools alongside Inuit partners to establish a framework for maritime practices that prioritize safety and quieter shipping. Navigating the interconnected goals of safety, noise, efficiency, access and ecological protection requires value-based decisions – not just technical optimizations. Inuit stewardship is foundational to this process. Their guidance on harmonizing priorities between noise reduction and fuel consumption or ice avoidance and community access is invaluable

In the summer of 2026, we’ll travel north to engage in knowledge-sharing with our Inuit partners.

This collaborative effort will focus on identifying culturally sensitive areas and marine mammal habitats.

In coordination with the Canadian High Arctic Research Station we will also co-develop field trials and community-based monitoring programs. This could include Inuit-led data collection, where community members would be trained to deploy hydrophones to monitor noise from hull-ice interaction, ensuring the research is grounded in local expertise and has long-term capacity.

Canadian High Arctic Research Station

What strategic advantages does UBC have in this area?

The challenges we face in the Arctic are vast and require an interdisciplinary approach that brings together engineering, science, community development, public policy and more. UBC has strengths in all these areas, with clusters of people working computational physics, AI and drone-based monitoring, complemented by leading groups in marine science, oceanography and social sciences. This interdisciplinary environment allows us to integrate engineering, science and community engagement.

Anything else you want to share?

While the research I’ve highlighted here focuses on the environmental side of shipping, UBC researchers are also exploring dual-use solutions that serve both defence and civilian needs. For example, the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard are investing in infrastructure in the Northwest Territories and Yukon that can also support community development. UBC is in a unique position to provide a platform for stakeholders to work together on solutions.

This work is further anchored within UBC’s Marine, Aerospace and Subsea Innovation (MASI) initiative and the PRISMS (Pacific Rim Initiative for Sustainable Marine Systems) cluster, which advance dual-use marine technologies supporting Arctic resilience, sustainable shipping and national sovereignty.

Marine, Aerospace and Subsea Innovation (MASI)

PRISMS (Pacific Rim Initiative for Sustainable Marine Systems)

It’s exciting to see new generations of students equipped to tackle these complex problems whose solutions have a major societal impact. They are transferring their advanced knowledge of mechanics, physics, and AI to protect ecosystems, strengthen Canada’s sovereignty and support community and climate resilience.

Finally, Arctic shipping is not only an engineering challenge – it is a defining issue for Canada’s environmental stewardship, northern economic development and national sovereignty. By equipping the next generation of engineers with advanced tools in mechanics, physics and AI, we are building the scientific foundation required for responsible Arctic leadership in the decades ahead.