Investigating the Impact of COVID-19 on Maritime Supply Chain Sustainability and Technology: A Review

Despite the increasing interest toward sustainability issues in supply chain over the academic and practitioners' perspectives, a comprehensive and updated assessment of the existing literature is still negotiated. Epidemic outbreaks are a unique case of supply chain (SC) risks which is particularly characterized by using a long-time period interruption lifestyle, and extreme uncertainty. As international transport stands at the front of trade and is mainly dependent on travel and human interaction, the shipping industry has been affected substantially from the epidemic of COVID-19 directly and indirectly. This paper represents a review that aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the sustainability of maritime supply chains in general and also in selected geographical areas in terms of the regulations and restrictions imposed by specific organizations in some countries as well as the effect on the supply chain sustainability. In addition, the paper highlights the recent technologies that are currently applied in maritime supply chains and how they can be employed as proposed solutions to facilitate the supply chain flow, overcome the negative effect caused by the COVID-19, and provide further managerial insights to cope with this situation in the most efficient and effective way.