2.4.5.2 Key systems for research

In this chapter, we have focused on cases in which there is emerging evidence of tipping cascades. In particular, case studies on Lake Chad and the Arab Spring offer focused evidence of how tipping cascades affect the systems in question. The broader examples of the Amazon rainforest illustrate the necessity to focus key systems in key regions due to their global significance. In particular, one region not covered here is the Arctic, where tipping points have global implications. 

Our topic modelling points towards most research being conducted in relation to the climate system, with focus on Arctic sea ice loss and coastal flooding, as well as energy transitions. There is also considerable focus on coral reefs, forests, the Amazon and organic carbon and soils, indicating that the knowledge base is more established with shared concepts. 

There are three things to note in terms of tipping cascades in social systems. First, among the 30 clusters that the topic modelling based on the currently published literature identifies, there are no clusters related to social tipping specifically, only to ecological or climate tipping. While there is a growing concern that a socio-economic system could also exhibit tipping behaviour cascading from the unprecedented stresses in natural systems, there appears to be a significant research gap on systematically documenting these tipping processes. This calls for an accumulation of empirical evidence, particularly in terms of identifying long-time series data and suitable variables to detect these trends. 

Second, it is also of note that, within the literature pulled back with the specified search terms, the majority of human-related terms seemed to relate to drivers rather than outcomes or processes in social systems. Correspondingly, social tipping processes started to be systematically conceptualised in the domain of climate change mitigation (Otto et al., 2020), understanding of the tipping dynamics of socio-economic systems hit by accelerating adverse impacts of climate change is in its infancy. This is despite the rising awareness of the possible collapse of livelihoods, forced migration or trapping, and key assets being stranded causing cascading damages to the financial and economic systems (i.e. a tipping process labelled as ‘Climate Minsky Moment’). Although it is accurate to label human activity as a major driver of climate-related tipping cascades, humans will also experience the consequences. A research gap in this area was, therefore, unexpected. 

Third, in terms of systems where there is less literature, it is worth pointing out that our search yielded few human-related clusters and none relating explicitly to tipping cascades within social systems. For example, topics such as tipping cascades in urban systems is not yet an established research topic, or at least was not visible in our data set. This is interesting, given that over half of the world’s population resides in urban settings. There are two potential explanations for this lack of focus. First, this type of research does not yet exist or is not yet systematically documented. Or second, different types of terminology and conceptual frameworks are used to describe the same or similar phenomena. For example, concepts such as urban land teleconnections (Seto et al., 2012), telecoupling (Kaspar et al., 2019), cross-border impacts (Carter et al., 2021; Groundstroem and Juhola, 2019) have all been used to describe the interlinkages between biogeophysical and social systems.