Academic research — trade, logistics, and geopolitics as primary sources

Maritime data has traditionally been expensive, siloed, or hard to access — limiting the amount of peer-reviewed research in economics, geography, and political science that could directly analyze physical trade flows. NTHMAP lowers that barrier for academic researchers.

Typical research questions

From papers we've seen cite NTHMAP or similar sources:

• "Impact of the Suez Canal blockage on global container shipping costs" (supply chain economics)
• "AIS-based estimates of CO₂ emissions from international shipping" (environmental science)
• "Dark fleet evolution in response to G7 price cap" (political science)
• "Spatial distribution of flag-of-convenience vessels" (international law)
• "Port efficiency and transshipment hub selection" (regional economics)
• "Geography of global oil trade post-2022" (political geography)

Access for academics

NTHMAP offers free or reduced-cost academic access for researchers at accredited institutions. The requirements:

1. You're a faculty member, postdoc, or graduate student at an accredited institution
2. The research is published (or intended for publication) in peer-reviewed venues
3. NTHMAP is credited in your data sources

Apply at research@nthmap.com with:

• Your institutional email
• A brief description of the research project
• Expected publication timeline

We typically approve within 5 business days.

Reproducibility

For academic research, reproducibility is critical. NTHMAP supports this through:

• Deterministic API responses — a query at a given captured_at timestamp returns the same data forever (for snapshots you've saved)
• Versioned datasets — each NTHMAP release is tagged and can be pinned
• Citation-friendly formats — we provide DOI-compatible citations for specific data snapshots used in published work
• Open source CLI and MCP server — the tools you use to access the data are open source and auditable

Data archival for reproducibility

For any published research, we recommend archiving the exact data snapshots used in the analysis:

# Archive a complete snapshot of vessels + infra + events for a study
mkdir -p ~/research-data/2026-04-persian-gulf/
cd ~/research-data/2026-04-persian-gulf/

nthmap vessels list --bbox 47,24,57,30 --format json > vessels.json
nthmap infra list --bbox 47,24,57,30 --format json > infra.json
nthmap events list --bbox 47,24,57,30 --format json > events.json
nthmap chokepoints list --format json > chokepoints.json

# Include metadata about when you took the snapshot
cat > metadata.json <<EOF
{
  "captured_at": "$(date -u -Iseconds)",
  "bbox": [47, 24, 57, 30],
  "api_version": "$(nthmap --version)",
  "nthmap_cli_version": "$(nthmap --version)"
}
EOF

Upload the whole directory to Zenodo or your institutional repository as supplementary data for your paper.

Citation

For a NTHMAP dataset used in research, cite as:

NTHMAP. (2026). Physical World Intelligence Map — [Dataset name]. Retrieved [date] from https://nthmap.com

For the platform itself:

NTHMAP: A unified physical-world intelligence platform for commodity trading, shipping, and intelligence research. https://nthmap.com

A BibTeX entry:

@misc{nthmap2026,
  title = {NTHMAP: Physical World Intelligence Map},
  author = {{NTHMAP}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://nthmap.com},
  note = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}

Sample research workflows

Econometric analysis of chokepoint stress

A PhD student studying the economic impact of chokepoint disruptions might:

1. Pull historical chokepoint status snapshots from NTHMAP enterprise archives
2. Merge with Baltic Dry Index and crude spread data
3. Run a time-series regression of spreads on disruption events
4. Publish with clear reproducibility notes

Dark fleet topology paper

A political science researcher studying dark fleet evolution:

1. Query NTHMAP for all vessels with specific flag-of-convenience codes over time
2. Cross-reference with NTHMAP port proximity data to infer port calls
3. Detect AIS gaps as dark fleet candidates
4. Map the network topology and publish

Environmental impact modeling

An environmental science team estimating shipping emissions:

1. Pull NTHMAP vessel positions + speeds + vessel types
2. Apply EEDI / Clarksons emission factors per vessel type
3. Integrate over time for total emissions estimates
4. Compare to IMO and Climate TRACE figures

Courses using NTHMAP

Several universities have incorporated NTHMAP into their courses:

• MIT Sloan — Global Economy and Business (shipping and trade module)
• Columbia SIPA — Energy Markets (oil and LNG flows)
• LSE — Economic Geography (trade networks)
• UC Berkeley — Data Journalism (investigative reporting module)

If you're teaching a course that could use NTHMAP, email education@nthmap.com for academic licensing discussion.

Limitations for research use

Be honest about what NTHMAP is and isn't:

• Not a historical archive — Pro tier gives 24 hours of vessel history. Enterprise gives 90 days. For multi-year historical research, you need enterprise archive access.
• Not a certified data source — NTHMAP is an aggregator. For research that requires IMO-certified AIS data, use a licensed provider like Clarksons or Spire.
• US-origin datasets — NOAA, USGS, NASA FIRMS are US government sources. For research specific to other jurisdictions (e.g., EU MSA events), you'll need supplementary sources.

Get started

Launch the map, register an account, and explore with the free tier. For research access, email research@nthmap.com with the details above.