A new paper in Nature lays out the way natural ecosystems parallel U.S. supply chains and how American cities can use these tools to strengthen their supply chains.
July 9,2021 A new paper in Nature lays out the way natural ecosystems parallel U.S. supply chains and how American cities can use these tools to strengthen their supply chains. The paper, “Supply chain diversity buffers cities against food shocks,” is co-authored by Benjamin Ruddell, director of the FEWSION Project and the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University, and Richard Rushforth, an assistant research professor in SICCS, in collaboration with FEWSION project researchers at Penn State. FEWSION is an NSF-funded collaboration that uses comprehensive data mapping to monitor domestic supply chains for food, water and energy down to the county level. This research looks at the importance of diversity within the supply chain, which helps to reduce damaging disruptions from supply chain shocks. Supply chains work a lot like food webs in natural ecosystems, in which biodiversity allows for adaptation during disruptions. The analogy turned out to be incredibly insightful, particularly in looking at ” black swan ” events, which are unpredictable and hard to protect against—and for which adaptation, not prevention, is the main defense. “This is why ecological theory is so important—if we have diverse supply chains that mimic ecological systems, they can more readily adapt to unforeseeable shocks,” Ruddell said. “We can use this nature-inspired design to create more resilient supply chains.
