This project was commissioned to revise the heat stress risk assessmet software, HotStuff, and provide a methodology to properly incorporate the risk of heat stress for open-decked vessels during discharge at ports in the Middle East. 

This project was commissioned to revise the heat stress risk assessmet software, HotStuff, and provide a methodology to properly incorporate the risk of heat stress while at port to the HotStuff software. 

The existing methodology for estimating the heat stress risk for livestock destined for Middle Eastern
ports has been used successfully for a number of years. However, while the methodology provided an
adequate approach to mitigating heat stress risk while sailing, the approach does not explicitly
address heat stress risk during discharge for open decks.

The study extended the existing methodology to address this issue. Risk estimates for both the sailing and discharge components of export voyages were incorporated in the revised methodology of HotStuff as well as the functionality for the separate treatment of each Middle Eastern port and for voyages discharging at multiple ports.

As part of this study, the HotStuff software was also moved to a more up-to-date development environment and updated to incorporate the new methodology, improve a range of features and fix a number of problems with the previous version.