Research Project

Climate Change Resiliency Assessment for Cold Food Storage and Logistics

Abstract

Lineage Logistics sits at the nexus between civilization and our environment. We store food that is grown, raised, or caught and ensure it’s safely stored and delivered to people all around the globe. This seemingly simple relationship is incredibly complex and interdependent in our modern world. Weather, climate, oceanography, geography, economics, and their downstream effects all impact the production of food, whether sourced from agriculture or fisheries; and even if food is grown or caught, there are still many factors that can inhibit its consumption. For example, the cold chain especially relies on energy, labor, and transportation to make sure food gets to the right place in the right condition. Each of these cold chain state variables is not only interdependent, they have time and space-varying dependencies to external states that represent political and sociological conditions that are inherently difficult to model.

Motivation/Research Problem

Recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, California wilfires, and the Texas energy crisis have highlighted the importance of implementing resilience strategies across our global portfolio in response to increasing volatility. We believe that global climate change and its cascading effects are among the most serious threats to global food security. Because of the complex and heterogeneous impacts that the climate can have on the world’s food supply, Lineage needs to better understand our long- and short-term geographical exposure to climate risk in order to take preventative action and avoid potential breakdowns in the cold chain.

Research Team

Lead Researchers

Bingbing Li, Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Collaborators

Dr. Alex Woolf, Mrs. Nadia Bolis, at Lineage Logistics
Dr. G.P. Li, Dr. Richard Donovan, Dr. Yoon Kim at University of California Irvine
Dr. Krystel Castillo at University of Texas San Antonio

Student Team

Mitesh Sawant, Engineering Management
Paula Logozzo, Mechanical Engineering

Funding

Lineage Logistics

Alignment, Engagement and Contributions

To address the resilience assessment related to climate change and sustainability.

Research Questions and Objectives

The team from UCI, CSUN and UTSA proposes to handle climate change through developing a robust and scalable methodology to quantify the type, magnitude, probability, and likely effects of climate risks facing Lineage operations and the supply chain. Using this model we will determine appropriate resilience strategies for each location, quantify capital at risk, and justify our investments in countermeasures to mitigate these risks and ensure continued safety and food security.

Research Methods

The human food web is a complex adaptive system that couples human and natural processes and spans the three dimensions of sustainability (Environment, Economy, and Society) as well as a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. This heterogeneity calls for a comprehensive systems approach that will include:

Sustainability Analysis
Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), Virtual Cold Chain (VCC) analysis, and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) analysis
Supply Chain Mapping, i.e., the first component of Supply Chain Modeling

Research Deliverables and Products

Publications, Presentations, and other Products and Current/Anticipated

Research Timeline

2 year project 10/27/2021-10/26/2023.