1.Complexity and consequence in coupled natural urban systems -- Section 1.The Galapagos as a living laboratory -- 2.The Galapagos Urban Context -- 3.Understanding Coupled Urban-Natural Dynamics as the Key to Sustainability: The Example of the Galapagos -- 4.Scales and Transformative Change: Transitions in the Galápagos -- Section 2.Socio-ecological models -- 5.Demographics of Change: Modelling the Transition of Fishers to Tourism in the Galapagos Islands -- 6.Socio ecological systems and the management of the natural resources in the Galapagos -- Section 3.Models of change -- 7.A Model-Based Approach to Study the Tourism Sustainability in an Island Environment: The Case of Galapagos Islands -- 8.Towards Urban Self-Sufficiency in the Galapagos Islands -- 9.Avoiding the colour grey: parametrising CAS to incorporate reactive scripting -- 10.Reflections.This book addresses the future of urbanisation on the Galapagos Islands from a systems, governance and design perspective with the competing parameters of liveability, economic and ecological, using the Galapagos as a laboratory for the theoretical and postulative understanding of evolving settlement and habitation. The Galapagos islands are one of the world’s most examined and reported examples of a series of naturally evolving ecosystems. The biodiversity of these island ecosystems are the focus of tourism and the image across the world yet human settlement are part of the local ecology. While human intervention is limited, the islands are a distinctive context in which to consider the impact of human habitation as a part of our ecosystems. In this book, authors take the framework of complex adaptive systems (CAS) in which to model systems that grow and evolve, the relations between these various sectors change; systems that get more complex as they evolve. Tested and applied discretely in the two realms of natural and urban, for the first time this text will bring the two together in understanding options for the future of urban settlements on the Galapagos Islands and, by extension, consider how the approach can be used globally in other contexts. · Takes complex adaptive systems from theory to practice · Delivers insights in resilient cities applicable globally · Establishes coupled natural urban systems as a tool for research and design.