4 April 2017

Call for papers: "Port Sustainability and Resilience"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics.

Ports are exposed to challenges and risks linked to market uncertainty, sustainability concerns, and shocks of a political, economic, technological or natural kind. Port authorities, port-related companies and broader port communities have to demonstrate ever higher levels of sustainability and resilience through processes of adaptation. New technologies, the new normal in the industry and new perspectives in port management bring new forms of long-term challenges.
 
This special issue aims to contribute to ongoing debates in academic, policy and corporate circles on sustainability and resilience in seaports. We invite you to submit original contributions based on rigorous methodological and empirical research. For example, the application of numerical methods to quantify and measure resilience metrics, the simulation of the effects of incidents, weather conditions or unscheduled size of cargo traffic on ports, the application of new methods and mitigation strategies for any kinds of threats, the development of computer intelligence systems and relevant algorithms dealing with monitoring, evaluating and responding any perils against the sustainability and resilience of ports, etc. We will primarily target operations research, economics and management science studies.
 
You are encouraged to contact the guest editors if you believe you have an additional interpretation of interest related to the general theme. Considering the key motivation. Authors are encouraged to formulate their studies around the long-term survival and steady growth of port corporations and terminal operators under both public and private (or PPPs) governance regimes.
 
The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the Conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME 2017, Kyoto), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.
 
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Economic and financial resilience in the boom-bust oscillations of shipping and trading activities
  • Security and armed conflicts around ports and their hinterlands
  • Life cycle of port architecture and ever-changing port technologies
  • Disasters and catastrophic events
  • Labor disputes, strikes and lock-outs
  • Environmental concerns, pollution, waste problems and energy related conflicts
  • Impacts of broader disruptive (technological) innovation and path-breaking new business models on ports
  • Side-effects of information technologies and cyber risks
  • Pitfalls of mature economies, downsizing and shortage of port demand
  • Challenges of rapidly developing countries, capacity building and utilization problems
  • Transport geography, redesigning port networks and new gravity centers of global trade
  • Social conflicts, port-city interactions, waterfront redevelopment
  • Impact of new models of supply-chain coordination and integrated transport problem solving on seaports
  • Disruptive competition, over-capacity building, collaborative development policies and industrial mediation
  • Institutional economics of ports, port governance and impact of port devolution in the sustainability and resilience of ports and terminals
  • Port externalities in various forms and size
 
Important Dates
Manuscripts due by: 30, September, 2017
Notification to authors: 31 December, 2017
Final versions due by: 31 March, 2018

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