Vulnerability of the Maritime Network to Tropical Cyclones in the Northwest Pacific and the Northern Indian Ocean

Maritime networks are one of the most important types of transportation networks in international logistics and it accounts for 90% of the global trade volume. However, the structure of maritime networks is severely impacted by tropical cyclones, especially the maritime network in the Northwest Pacific and the northern Indian Ocean. This paper investigates the vulnerability of the maritime network in the Northwest Pacific and the northern Indian Ocean to the influence of tropical cyclones through removing ports at high or very high tropical cyclones hazard levels and analyzing how the network structure characteristics change from a complex network point of view. From the results, we find that this maritime network is a small-world network and the degree distribution of ports follows a power law distribution. The ports in East Asia are impacted more severely by the tropical cyclones. Moreover, this maritime network exhibits some vulnerability to tropical cyclones. However, the interconnection of the survived ports is not severely impacted, when the network is attacked by tropical cyclones. The port system in the Philippines is most vulnerable to the influence of tropical cyclones, followed by the ports systems in Japan and China. The paper also shows that it is important for studies of maritime network vulnerability to identify the ports that are both important to the regional and cross-regional logistics and severely impacted by natural hazards. The findings provide a theoretical basis for optimizing the port layout and improving the ability of the network to resist damage caused by tropical cyclones.