Coupled human and natural critical ecosystems (CHANCE)

Explaining the science

We can learn from natural complex systems which have evolved under constant attack and environmental stress. In particular, we draw inspiration from natural ecosystems, where two recent discoveries are relevant.

First, it has been shown that these complex systems can grow in size and complexity whilst retaining resilience. Even without precise knowledge of the complex dynamics, one can still check the stability of a system from the network structure. This has the potential to achieve long-term resilient growth of complex systems.

Second, it was shown that ecosystems can dynamically 'rewire' to minimise a cascade of failures. This mechanism can achieve dynamic resilience in the face of unknown risks. Further analysis in this project will focus on network robustness under different attack/failure and recovery scenarios. This naturally occurring distributed intelligence may help us develop connected thinking and build both static and dynamic approaches to resilience, that can adapt under future uncertainty.