MODELING AND SIMULATING GLOBAL TRADE GEOGRAPHIES

Deep Frontiers

Deep Frontiers develops a computational geography of global flows. The platform links navigable space, computed routes, and international trade, and allows network configurations to be modified to simulate and compare the resulting flow geographies. Maritime transport currently forms its technical core.

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World map of computed maritime connectivity — **Global maritime connectivity**Global maritime connectivity — computed network structure at a global scale.

From networks to flows

REPRESENT

Formalize navigable space as a computational network.

COMPUTE

Compute port-to-port routes for a given network configuration.

CONNECT

Link computed routes to trade flows, products, and territories.

EXPERIMENT

Modify network accessibility, constraints, or cost functions, recompute routes, and measure the resulting changes.

Platform scale

24Mnodes1.4B+edges

847reference portsterminal set used for current computations

716,562computed port-to-port routesall directed relations among the 847 reference ports

1964→harmonized UN Comtrade data

Global trade in sports footwear and network reconfiguration under a Bab el-Mandeb closure scenario.

Trade in a given product category can be assigned to maritime gateways and then combined with computed routes. The analysis shown below maps global sports-footwear trade flows and shows the modeled effects of a Bab el-Mandeb closure scenario.

World map comparing affected sport-shoe trade routes before and after a hypothetical Bab el-Mandeb closure, with nominal routes in cyan and recomputed routes in yellow. — Before and after — Affected nominal routes are shown in cyan; recomputed routes after closure are shown in yellow.

23,567affected port-to-port connections

+3,666 nmweighted mean detour

2.6% of affected port-to-port connections → 80% of the additional transportation work

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The same framework can be applied to other products, other network configurations, and their evolution over time using harmonized trade data extending back to 1964.

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Deep Frontiers Platform

Navigable network, route computation, configurations, trade data, high-performance computing, and empirical comparison.

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Analysis

From global sport-shoe trade to route reconfiguration under a Bab el-Mandeb closure scenario.

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Collaborations

Adjacent disciplines, data, domain expertise, and strategic questions around global networks and flows.

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