ARUM–D Nexus: Adaptive Reflexive Urban Metabolism for Complex Construction and Demolition Waste Governance in Bengaluru

Urban material systems exhibit nonlinear dynamics governed by feedback, adaptation, and emergent coupling among institutions, markets, and behaviors. Construction and demolition (C&D) waste in Bengaluru is a great example of such complexity, where fragmented regulation, informal actors, and digital asymmetries coalesce into unstable waste flows and resource leakages. This study conceptualizes Bengaluru’s C&D waste system as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS), where institutional, market, behavioral, and metabolic subsystems co-evolve through nonlinear feedback interactions. A meta-analysis of secondary literature combined with benchmarking of government datasets is used to evaluate two key complexity indicators, i.e., response speed and feedback density. The advancement of a new systems model—ARUM–D Nexus (Adaptive Reflexive Urban Metabolism with Digital core) positions the Digital Urban Material Passport (DUMP) as a reflexive sensing mechanism to reduce causal latency and synchronize adaptive responses. Results demonstrate that feedback-rich digital coupling and reflexive institutional behavior can support material flows, reduce illegal dumping, increase recycling efficiency, and intensify urban resilience under uncertainty. The study contributes a complexity-grounded governance model and measurable indicators that support adaptive decision-making for C&D waste management in rapidly expanding cities.