Panama Canal drought (2023)
The 2023 drought forced the Panama Canal Authority to cut the number of daily transits, showing that a maritime chokepoint can close without a war.
The Panama Canal runs on locks fed with fresh water by Gatun Lake: every transit releases tens of millions of liters to the sea. When rain fails, the canal authority restricts draft and then the number of transits, and ships wait, pay for auctioned slots or divert via Cape Horn or Suez. The harm is delay and extra cost, without physical damage: it falls outside most cargo and hull policies, and belongs to specific trade disruption covers or freight clauses. It is also a climate risk transmitted through infrastructure, which can coincide with political risk on another route, as happened in the Red Sea the same year.
From the summer of 2023, the Panama Canal Authority cut daily transits from about thirty-six in normal times to twenty-two in December 2023, and lowered the maximum draft; in the same season, attacks in the Red Sea diverted part of the Suez traffic around the Cape of Good Hope.
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