The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
The field of trade and strategic resources studies how materials, components, food and energy move from where they are produced to where they are used, and what happens when those flows are interrupted. It draws on trade economics, operations research, geology, materials science, transport engineering and geography. This page defines the field, explains why it matters and shows how it connects to other risks.
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For field overview, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on night lights, population density and true-colour imagery with true colour from NASA GIBS, framed on the Strait of Malacca; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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GeographyFor field overview, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on night lights, population density and true-colour imagery with true colour from NASA GIBS, framed on the Strait of Malacca; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
The Trade and Strategic Resources field covers supply networks, trade routes, critical minerals and strategic inputs that underpin industrial and national resilience. Experts in it study questions such as trade corridors and chokepoints and critical minerals, with methods such as network science and contagion as well as optimization and operations research. Its counterparts at GRF and GRA look at the same systems through governance and finance.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
The field examines supply networks as systems: the nodes where goods are extracted, processed and assembled, the links that carry them by sea, rail, road, air and pipeline, and the rules, contracts and policies that govern those flows. Strategic resources are inputs that are both essential to important activities and hard to replace quickly, such as certain minerals, advanced semiconductors, fertilisers, staple grains and fuels.
Experts in the field ask how concentrated production is, how substitutable each input is, how long a disruption would take to work through, and which users are most exposed.
Disruptions raise prices of food, fuel and medicines, with the heaviest burden on lower-income households and import-dependent countries.
Missing components halt assembly lines far from the original disruption, across sectors that share an input.
Energy and digital transitions increase demand for minerals whose refining is concentrated in few places.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Chokepoint | A narrow passage or node through which a large share of trade must pass. |
| Supplier concentration | How far a country's imports of a fuel come from few suppliers, measured with indices such as the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. |
| Due diligence | A process to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for adverse impacts in operations and supply chains. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from the interactions and dependencies within and between systems, where a shock can propagate and threaten the functioning of the whole. |
Trade networks connect to almost every other Nexus field. Climate hazards close ports and low river levels limit barge traffic; cyber incidents can halt port and logistics systems; conflicts close routes; and food and energy price shocks feed into health, social stability and public finance. These links are set out in dependencies and consequences.
The field gateways for trade, resources and supply chains and industry and robotics show every Consortium platform working on these subjects.
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