Abstract: Large human projects such as cities, agriculture and trade, however tightly organised they are, cannot escape being vulnerable to the unpredictability of weather and the agency of non-humans such as plants and rivers. The most successful of such projects need attentiveness, flexibility and a convivial approach to the interdependence of humans and the world around them. I will explore these ideas with a range of examples from the historical period in Cyprus, mainly from the south coast round the Greco-Roman city of Kourion. At many periods the networks were surprisingly decentralised, such as in Late Roman harbours and trade, or Ottoman-period community irrigation systems. The Medieval sugar plantations of the Venetians and Hospitallers, by contrast, were strikingly hierarchical and exploitative, and were therefore more vulnerable to the unpredictabilities of weather and water.