We would like to bring your attention to the special session on ‘Modelling responses to shocks in coupled socio-ecological systems’, which will be held at iEMSs 2012 (please see the announcement attached). There are many examples of sudden abrupt changes in complex socio-environmental systems. This happens often either due to the pressure of socio-economic system that undermines carrying capacity of natural system or due to the effects of climate change . Agent-based modeling seems to be one of the most appropriate ways to model such structural changes as it is able to track feedbacks, non-linearities, and to capture out-of equilibrium dynamics.The session is supported by the ESSA Special Interest Group on “Spatial and Ecological-Economic issues” (www.essa.eu.org/) and Global Land Project (http://www.globallandproject.org/)