The geography of maritime networks: A critical review

Abstract

Despite early cartographical and graph-theoretical analyses of maritime flows in the 1940s and 1960s, it is only from the 2000s onwards that maritime network analysis had grown apace, backed by newly available shipping data, increased computational power, and renewed conceptual frameworks to study networks in general. The evolution of maritime network analysis, in geography and other sciences, is marked by a wide diversity of methods and themes, which we classify into three main parts. We first present studies looking at maritime flows in an abstract space, focusing on operational, statistical, or managerial aspects where navigation, graph structure, and firms' strategies are the key concerns. Second, we review researches where maritime flows and networks are markers and vectors of wider geo-economic structures and dynamics, such as regional inequalities and areas of dominance. Lastly, maritime networks have also been considered as integral parts of territories and wider chained systems, such as urban networks, regional networks, and coupled networks. We conclude that network analysis and maritime transport still share many uncovered areas and discuss potential research pathways for future works.

Urban Green Infrastructure and Sustainable Development: A Review

“…previously (2016-2018), nature based solutions occurred in 6 papers during 2019-2020 (Figure 2). The index of connectivity (Ducrue and Rodrigue, [22]) for the full network of topics is 0.65, which confirms the idea that this network of topics still has a high potential for linking subjects of interest in relation to UGI and SD.…”

“…The gamma index of connectance is a measure of connectivity among nodes (subjects or topics of interest) of a network: the number of links divided by the total number of possible links [22]. It can be applied to both the full network and to a specific node of the network.…”

The spatial dimension of maritime connectivity: The case of Northern Europe and the Mediterranean

“…This leads in the establishment of a hierarchy of primary and secondary networks connecting different hubs and feeder ports (Notteboom et al, 2010;Ducruet & Notteboom, 2012). Some studies focus on a specific range of ports and identify the emergence of primary and secondary hubs in a general portal hierarchy (Wang & Ng, 2011;Wang and Cullinane, 2014;Ducruet, 2020). These studies deliver two main findings: first, they show that the connectivity of a port or a country is integrated into a large-scale network designed by shipping companies (Ducruet et al, 2010).…”

Identifying the characteristics of China’s maritime trading partners on the basis of bilateral shipping connectivity: a cluster analysis

“…The maritime network is a complex phenomenon, and the literature contains several diverse definitions of this concept. In a review paper, Ducruet (2020) explored the development of the maritime network concept in geography and other disciplines. The study showed that the development of the concept has involved a wide variety of methods and subjects classified into three categories.…”