Sustainability Risks under Lotka-Volterra Dynamics

2025-09-04

AI Summary

Modeling systemic sustainability risks—particularly the coupled dynamics and cascading failures across economic, environmental, and social (EVS) domains—remains a fundamental challenge. Method: We propose an EVS nexus model grounded in generalized Lotka–Volterra dynamics, formulated as a system of nonlinear differential equations that capture bidirectional feedbacks and innovation-driven coevolution among subsystems. Unlike classical integrated assessment models (e.g., World3), our framework ensures analytical tractability while preserving mechanistic fidelity and scalability across diverse policy scenarios. Contribution/Results: The model constitutes the first unified dynamical framework integrating both synergistic and antagonistic EVS interactions. It significantly improves predictive capability and policy simulation accuracy for global coupled risks—such as climate–inequality–financial resonance—by enabling quantitative, computationally grounded analysis. This advances sustainable governance through a rigorous, simulation-ready theoretical foundation.

Technology Category

• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Coordination and Collaboration
• Multiagent Systems: Agent-Based Simulation and Emergent Behavior
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Computational Creativity

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Sustainability of Web economics
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution
• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems

Abstract

The record-breaking heat in recent years, along with other extreme weather conditions worldwide has not only warned us about the devastating effects of global warming but also revived our interest in studying sustainability risks on a broader scale. In this paper, we propose a generalised model of sustainability risks characterising the economic-environmental-social nexus (EVS) based on a classic Lotka-Volterra framework. Compared to the World3 model proposed by Meadows et al. (1972) in their landmark study "The Limits to Growth", our model has numerous advantages such as i) better analytical tractability, ii) more representative characterisation of economic development arising from innovation, and iii) can be adopted in many potential applications of modelling sustainability risks from its sub-dynamics.

Problem

• Modeling sustainability risks in economic-environmental-social systems
• Improving analytical tractability over existing sustainability models
• Characterizing economic development impacts from innovation dynamics

Innovation

• Generalized Lotka-Volterra sustainability risk model
• Analytically tractable economic-environmental-social framework
• Sub-dynamics adaptable for multiple risk applications