The Concept of a CLIOS Analysis Illustrated by the Mexico City Case

Abstract

The term CLIOS (Complex, Large-scale, Integrated, Open Systems) was conceived as way to capture the salient characteristics of a class of systems that are of growing interest to researchers, decisionmakers, policy makers and stakeholders. These systems range from an air traffic control system to the global climate system, and from Boston’s Big Dig to the eBay online trading system. We start by defining the primary characteristics of CLIOS. First, a system is complex when it is composed of a group of interrelated units (component and subsystems), for which the degree and nature of the relationships is imperfectly known – with varying directionality, magnitude and time-scales of interactions among the various subsystems. Second, CLIOS have impacts that are large in magnitude, and often long-lived and of large-scale geographical extent. Third, subsystems within CLIOS are integrated, closely coupled through feedback loops. Finally, by open we mean that CLIOS explicitly include social, political and economic aspects (Sussman, 2000a). Finally, with CLIOS we are as concerned with the complexity of the organizational and institutional parts of the systems as we are with the physical system. In fact, understanding the organizational and institutional structure and its interaction with the physical structure is one of the key potential values of a CLIOS analysis