“Ecological strain” and “economic stratification” could lead to the global fall of modern civilization within decades, researchers warn in a disturbing new study (PDF) sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

History shows that “complex, advanced civilizations” from the Roman to Han empires are capable of collapse, note the authors, who hail from the Universities of Maryland and Minnesota.

Based on this premise, the researchers employ “a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharri of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists,” explains Nafeez Ahmed writing for The Guardian.

“By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilizational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy,” writes Ahmed.