This paper examines the interdependencies mediating the cascading negative consequences triggered by the September 2013 flood, in Boulder, Colorado, USA. By illustrating the risks to people and critical food-energy-water systems of a low probability, high-impact event, we draw lessons on what is likely to occur in the future. Other scholars have modeled the influence of interdependent infrastructures on cascading effects. But this is one of the first studies integrating stakeholders' understanding of the influence of interdependent actions, institutions, and infrastructures. These interdependencies create the conditions for vulnerability, which is a product of multiscale and dynamic sociodemographic, economic, technologic, environmental, and governance interactions. Political histories and historical decisions on where and how to design infrastructure exert a deep influence on short- and long-term capacity to manage risk. Boulder's high socio-institutional and learning capacity, while key, is not enough to influence integrative, transformative changes. Contrary to current approaches to nexus thinking, the regimes in which emergency and recovery actions are embedded are dynamically stable, thus imposing a logic for incremental change along established pathways of understanding and action. Our study offers some lessons on the challenges of bringing together diverse sectoral and jurisdictional sectors during and after an extreme event. Plain Language Summary We analyze the influence of infrastructures, institutions, and actions on cascading effects triggered by the 2013 floods in Boulder. With input from stakeholders, we connect analyses from different disciplinary lineages to examine how these conditions may lead, during an extreme event, to cascading negative consequences. While other scholars have modeled the influence of infrastructural interdependences on cascading effects, this is one of the first studies integrating stakeholders' understandings in order to examine some of the mechanisms by which critical infrastructural and socio-institutional interdependencies and actions can mitigate or amplify the cascading effects from an extreme event. Our analysis suggests that interdependent actions and governance regimes are as relevant as infrastructures in amplifying and mitigating risks. We can conclude that the high socio-institutional capacity and ability for learning from extreme events characteristic of Boulder County, while key in mitigating risk, is not enough to influence deeper, transformative changes in understanding and practices among public and private actors. On the contrary, and in support of sociotechnical transitions theories, the socio-institutional regimes in which the emergency response and recovery actions are embedded are dynamically stable, thus imposing a logic for incremental change along established pathways of what is appropriate understanding and action.
