GlobalEconomicSince 2020Curatedmedium confidence

Supply Chain and Chokepoint Fragility

Global trade runs through a handful of straits, canals and factories.

Severity score

39.5

Serious · default weighting

Trajectory

Worsening

What this is

Attacks in the Red Sea, drought in the Panama Canal and single-source manufacturing for critical components have repeatedly shown how thin the margins are. Disruption transmits into food and medicine availability within weeks in import-dependent countries.

Score breakdown

Loss of life

8

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

58

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

72

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

12

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

64

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.