The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Biological systems connect people, animals, plants, ecosystems and economies. This page, part of Biotechnology and Biosecurity at The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), sets out how biological risks and biotechnology applications are linked to health systems, food systems, supply chains and the environment, how stress travels along those links and why biological events can produce consequences far beyond their point of origin.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For dependencies and consequences, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on crop greenness, population density, daytime surface heat and true-colour imagery, framed on West Africa; 2 further NASA layers wait in the list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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Dependencies and consequences in Biotechnology and Biosecurity describe how health and biosecurity as well as food and agriculture connect to other systems through physical, economic, social and ecological links, and how stress travels along them toward fields such as those of Climate and Nature Governance and Health and Biosecurity Governance. Every dependency map states its assumptions, data and uncertainty; it describes connections, not a forecast.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Pathogens move between people, livestock, wildlife and crops, and through water and soil.
Vaccines, diagnostics, reagents and biomanufactured goods rely on concentrated, international supply chains.
Detection, response and oversight depend on laboratories, regulators and trained people.
Biological events are distinctive because agents can replicate and spread. An outbreak strains health systems, which then struggle to provide routine care; illness and precautionary measures reduce the workforce; travel and trade restrictions disrupt supply chains; and public finances absorb the costs of response and support. Agricultural outbreaks can force the culling of animals or the destruction of crops, affecting farm incomes, food prices and trade.
Biotechnology supply chains carry their own dependencies. Concentrated production of reagents, enzymes, vaccines and medical inputs means that a disruption at one site or in one country can limit supplies elsewhere, as experience in recent health emergencies has shown. Ecological consequences can follow from the release of organisms or from changes in land use and farming practice.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Interdependency | A two-way dependency between infrastructures, such as power needing telecoms for control while telecoms need power to run. |
| Cascading risk | Risk that a failure in one system or component triggers failures in others that depend on it. |
| Compound event | Two or more hazards or drivers occurring together or in sequence whose joint impact exceeds what either would cause alone, such as drought followed by intense rain; IPCC assessments use the term. |
| Dependency mapping | Tracing the people, processes, technology, facilities and suppliers a service relies on. |
Analysis uses epidemiology and public health science for transmission and burden, probability and statistics for uncertainty and agricultural, soil and food science for food system links. Every analysis states its assumptions. Biological systems are complex and adaptive: transmission depends on behaviour and policy, many dependencies are only visible during events, and a dependency analysis describes how stress could travel, never a forecast. Methods are set out on methods and uncertainty.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.