Metabolic interdependencies

Like a body's metabolism. The biological metaphor helps but the full phrase is dense. 'Life-support supply chains' or 'essential resource flows' might land better. Reframes supply chains as the metabolic systems on which communities depend for survival. When metabolic interdependencies break, consequences cascade faster than institutional response can move.

How communities depend on flows of food, water, energy, materials - and what happens when they break.