America’s risk is coupled, not cumulative

Part I describes systems and their couplings. It assesses no authority and ranks no state or territory.

6 min read2 figures2 tables13 notesNR-COUNTRY-USA-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1America’s risk is coupled, not cumulative
    1. 1.1 The questions this part answers
    2. 1.2 The argument
    3. 1.3 Twenty couplings between five systems
    4. 1.4 Reinforcing loops
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Western heat, fire and grid summer
  8. 6Lenses and readings
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

  • Where is Canada’s risk concentrated, and in which systems?
  • Which couplings carry shocks from one system to the next?
  • Which capabilities hold under compound stress, and which are only documented?
  • What must the 2027 programme measure first?

In this part

  • Narrative
  • Headline finding
  • Lead figure
  • Twelve-domain reading
  • Sector screens
  • Dependency matrix
  • Risk objects
  • Capability ladder
  • Scenario
  • Three lenses
  • Portfolio

1.2The argument

The United States records more disaster losses than any other country, and it usually reports them one event at a time. This baseline reads the record as a coupled system. In 2025 North America carried US$133 billion of the world’s US$224 billion in natural-disaster losses; the Los Angeles wildfires alone caused about US$53 billion, the costliest wildfire disaster on record2.

Frequency now drives the record. There were 27 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in 2024, after a record 28 in 202315. The Fifth National Climate Assessment found that such events, once roughly one every four months in the 1980s, now occur about every three weeks, and that the contiguous United States has warmed about 1.4 °C since 1970, faster than the global average3.

Insurance has absorbed most of these losses, about 70% in North America in 20252, but cover is retreating where risk is highest. Premiums and non-renewals have risen fastest in the most exposed ZIP codes21, and flood risk remains largely outside private cover40. Where insurance withdraws, losses move onto households, states and federal assistance.

The energy system couples most of the others. Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 failed large parts of the Texas grid; water systems lost pressure and the state recorded 246 storm-related deaths1631. Summer peaks now add data-centre load: data centres used about 4.4% of US electricity in 2023, with 6.7–12% projected for 20286.

Water is tight where growth is fastest. The first-ever shortage on the Colorado River was declared in 20218, thermoelectric power and irrigation take most withdrawals7, and heat-related deaths reached a record 2,325 in 20239. About 40% of the country’s animal species are at risk of extinction10.

This edition therefore treats American risk as a property of couplings, between heat, grids, water, health and insurance, rather than a list of separate hazards. The matrix, risk objects, capability ladder and scenario that follow ask where a shock travels next and who holds the capability to stop it.

Figure 1.1Where does America’s water go? Withdrawals by use, 2015 (% of total)

Power plants and farms take almost four-fifths of withdrawals. Drought and heat therefore reach electricity and food before they reach household taps7.

ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Thermoelectric power41
Irrigation37
Public supply12
Self-supplied industry5
All other uses5

Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2015.

Figure ID FIG-COUNTRY-USA-2026-BASELINE-01-003

322bn gal/day

total withdrawals, 20157

4.4%

electricity used by data centres, 20236

13.5%

households food insecure, 202311

2021first

Colorado River shortage8

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

The United States matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the starting graph that the Q1 2027 Foundry cut will test.

Figure 1.2Couplings between the five systems

Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.

  • Strong
  • Moderate
  • Weak

Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.

Table 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
From, toWATENEFOOHLTBIO
WAT Water·STRONG
thermoelectric cooling · hydro		STRONG
irrigation · rain-fed yield		MODERATE
drinking water		STRONG
flows · wetlands
ENE EnergyMODERATE
pumping · treatment		·STRONG
fuel · fertiliser · cold chain		STRONG
facility power · cooling		MODERATE
reservoirs · land use
FOO FoodMODERATE
withdrawals · nutrients		WEAK
biofuel feedstock		·STRONG
nutrition · food safety		STRONG
land conversion
HLT HealthWEAK
workforce		WEAK
workforce		MODERATE
labour · disease		·WEAK
residues
BIO BiodiversitySTRONG
regulation · filtration		MODERATE
fire on lines · biomass		STRONG
pollination · soils		MODERATE
zoonoses · smoke		·
Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A.

Transmission paths

  1. 01

    ENE → WAT → HLT

    Cold or heat fails the grid; water pressure and care settings fail with it.

    Reported Winter Storm Uri, 202116

  2. 02

    CLI → BIO → HLT

    Wildfire smoke loads health services far from the fire.

    Reported 2023 smoke events

  3. 03

    CLI → FIN

    Wildfire and hurricane losses drive insurance retreat.

    Reported 2025 Los Angeles fires2

  4. 04

    WAT → FOO

    Aquifer decline and drought cut irrigated production.

    Inferred High Plains aquifer

  5. 05

    AIC → ENE

    Data-centre load narrows reliability margins in extremes.

    Inferred growth to 20286

1.4Reinforcing loops

A shock entering either system of a loop can return amplified through the other.

Table 1.2Pairs of systems where both directions are rated strong
LoopFirst directionSecond direction
WAT and BIOWater to biodiversity: flows · wetlandsBiodiversity to water: regulation · filtration
FOO and BIOFood to biodiversity: land conversionBiodiversity to food: pollination · soils
A causal-loop reading of the matrix (Sterman, Business Dynamics, 2000): structural, from estimated strengths, not a measured feedback.

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 2Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
  2. 15NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (ed.), U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters, 1980–2024. NOAA NCEI, Asheville, NC, January 2025.back
  3. 3A. R. Crimmins, C. W. Avery, D. R. Easterling, K. E. Kunkel, B. C. Stewart and T. K. Maycock (eds.), Fifth National Climate Assessment. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, 2023.back
  4. 21Federal Insurance Office (ed.), Analyses of U.S. Homeowners Insurance Markets, 2018–2022: Climate-Related Risks and Other Factors. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, January 2025.back
  5. 40Federal Emergency Management Agency (ed.), National Flood Insurance Program: program description and policy statistics. FEMA, Washington, DC, retrieved 2026-09-30.back
  6. 16Texas Department of State Health Services (ed.), February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas. DSHS, Austin, TX, 2021.back
  7. 31Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (eds.), February 2021 Cold Weather Outages in Texas and the South Central United States. FERC and NERC, Washington, DC, 2021.back
  8. 6A. Shehabi, S. J. Smith, A. Hubbard et al., 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, December 2024.back
  9. 8U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (ed.), “Reclamation announces 2022 operating conditions for Lake Powell and Lake Mead.” News release, Washington, DC, August 2021.back
  10. 7C. A. Dieter, M. A. Maupin, R. R. Caldwell et al., Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2015, Circular 1441. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, 2018.back
  11. 9J. T. Howard, N. Androne, K. C. Alcover and A. R. Santos-Lozada, “Trends of heat-related deaths in the US, 1999–2023,” JAMA, vol. 332, no. 14, pp. 1203–1204, 2024.back
  12. 10NatureServe (ed.), Biodiversity in Focus: United States Edition. NatureServe, Arlington, VA, 2023.back
  13. 11USDA Economic Research Service (ed.), Household Food Security in the United States in 2023. USDA ERS, Washington, DC, December 2024.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 1: America’s risk is coupled, not cumulative. In United States Systems Risk and Resilience Report 2026: The State of the United States’ Interdependent Systems (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-COUNTRY-USA-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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