Mathematical questions in sustainability and resilience

One of the things sustainability applications have in common with industrial applications is their close connection with decision-making and policy. We will discuss how a decision-support viewpoint may inspire new mathematical questions. For example, the concept of resilience (of ecosystems, food systems, communities, economies, etc) is often described as the capacity of a system to withstand disturbance and retain its functional characteristics. This has several familiar mathematical interpretations, probing the interaction between transient dynamics and noise. How does a focus on resilience change the modeling, dynamical and policy questions we ask? I look forward to your ideas and discussion.