Rebuilding Resilient Maritime Transport and Supply Chain Networks: The Yangtze River Delta, China

This chapter discusses the building of resilient maritime transport and supply chain networks in the Yangtze River Delta in China. With the intensification of global climate change and the frequent occurrence of natural disasters, the resilience of ports, as crucial nodes in the global supply chain, has become extremely important. The Yangtze River Delta is one of the most economically active regions in China, and ports such as Shanghai Port and Ningbo Zhoushan Port play significant roles in trade. However, in recent years, the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events has brought great challenges and numerous risks to the port trade in the Yangtze River Delta region, which also indirectly affects the stable operation of the global supply chain. Therefore, this paper takes the coastal ports in the Yangtze River Delta as the research object, adopts the risk assessment method based on an index system, and applies the matter-element extension risk assessment model to analyze the impacts of two representative extreme meteorological disasters, namely tropical cyclones and storm surges, on the infrastructure and operation of coastal ports in the Yangtze River Delta region, quantify the risk levels of extreme meteorological disasters in ports, analyze the influence degree of each area of the ports when suffering from extreme meteorological disasters, and propose strategies to improve resilience based on the results, providing support for ensuring the safe operation of the supply chain.