Mapping Multi-System Interactions in Urban Contexts—A Study of the Energy, Transport, and Food Systems in the Municipality of Gothenburg

Book chapter, 2026

This chapter addresses multi-system interactions linking the energy, transport, and food systems in the urban context of Gothenburg municipality in Sweden. Through the analysis of municipal documents (policy recommendations, guidelines, action plans, and strategies), we mapped the inter-system interactions between key actors, infrastructures/technologies, and institutions. This mapping revealed planned, emerging and established technology couplings, implicit and explicit institutional couplings, and multiple key actor couplings. The mapping proved to be a useful tool for identifying strengths and weaknesses of existing structures put in place to foster multi-system interactions. Among the strengths, structural actor couplings showed the largest number of interlinkages across systems. Meanwhile, the few interactions between the food system and the two other systems also highlighted the challenges of effectively integrating and prioritizing multi-system linkages and underscored the difficulties of operationalizing visions for multi-system transitions, even in urban environments, which are often seen as natural sites for such interactions.