ABSTRACT
This chapter analyse the complexities of the maritime and port systems, identifying and exploring the challenges to synchronising maritime networks and demand, as revealed through processes of concentration and deconcentration, centralisation and decentralisation. The quantity of this movement exploded in the wake of the development of containerised transport in the second half of the twentieth century, whereby the adoption of the maritime container revolutionised the geography of the global maritime logistics system. The chapter explores the evolution of maritime networks and the 'autopoietic'-nature of port development as ports pursue a variety of proactive and reactive strategies that involve different actors within a complex institutional environment. The challenges of 'unproductive' and 'induced' mobilities in the maritime system are also identified and discussed in this chapter. Finally, a systems perspective is applied in order to develop a framework mapping the complexity of elements and flows in material mobilities.
