Understanding Dynamics and Resilience in Complex Interdependent Systems

This report describes the results of a workshop that addressed the challenge of developing coupled modeling and analysis of interdependent energy, land, and water systems. It has been prepared by a group of scientists who participated in the workshop process. The views expressed are those of the authors. The report includes short summaries of workshop presentations and breakout group discussions. It considers the opportunity to develop an interdisciplinary framework for data, modeling, and analysis of complex human-natural systems.The workshop was convened by a set of Federal agencies under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program that have an interest in developing and applying data sets, computational resources, and models to improve knowledge of complex systems. The participating agencies, state and local governments, private-sector firms, regional planning authorities, and others have a shared interest in understanding how interdependencies and feedbacks could lead to cascading failures and shocks resulting from interacting changes in climate, settlement patterns, and other stressors, and from emerging properties of the systems themselves.