Telecoupling Research: The First Five Years

Remittance from migrants reinforces forest recovery for China's reforestation policy

Forests play a key role in the mitigation of global warming and provide many other vital ecosystem goods and services. However, as forest continues to vanish at an alarming rate from the surface of the planet, the world desperately needs knowledge on what contributes to forest preservation and restoration. Migration, a hallmark of globalization, is widely recognized as a main driver of forest recovery and poverty alleviation. Here, we show that remittance from migrants reinforces forest recovery that would otherwise be unlikely with mere migration, realizing the additionality of payments for ecosystem services for China's largest reforestation policy, the Conversion of Cropland to Forest Program (CCFP). Guided by the framework that integrates telecoupling and coupled natural and human systems, we investigate forest-livelihood dynamics under the CCFP through the lens of rural out-migration and remittance using both satellite remote sensing imagery and household survey data in two representative sites of rural China. Results show that payments from the CCFP significantly increases the probability of sending remittance by out-migrants to their origin households. We observe substantial forest regeneration and greening surrounding households receiving remittance but forest decline and browning in proximity to households with migrants but not receiving remittance, as measured by forest coverage and the Enhanced Vegetation Index derived from space-borne remotely sensed data. The primary mechanism is that remittance reduces the reliance of households on natural capital from forests, particularly fuelwood, allowing forests near the households to recover. The shares of the estimated ecological and economic additionality induced by remittance are 2.0% (1.4%∼3.8%) and 9.7% (5.0%∼15.2%), respectively, to the baseline of the reforested areas enrolled in CCFP and the payments received by the participating households. Remittance-facilitated forest regeneration amounts to 12.7% (6.0%∼18.0%) of the total new forest gained during the 2003-2013 in China. Our results demonstrate that remittance constitutes a telecoupling mechanism between rural areas and cities over long distances, influencing the local social-ecological gains that the forest policy intended to stimulate. Thus, supporting remittance-sending migrants in cities can be an effective global warming mitigation strategy.

Balancing food production with climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation in the Brazilian Amazon

Climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation are two major environmental actions that need to be effectively performed this century, alongside ensuring food supply for a growing global human population. These three issues are highly interlinked through land management systems. Thus, major global food production regions located in biodiversity hotpots and with potential for carbon sequestration face trade-offs between these valuable land-based ecosystem services. The state of Mato Grosso in Brazil is one such region, where private lands that have been illegally used for agriculture could be restored to natural vegetation - with potential benefits for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, although with potentially negative effects on food production. To address this challenge, in this study we used a multicriteria nexus modeling approach that considers carbon stocks, priority areas for biodiversity conservation, and the opportunity for food production, to develop scenarios of land allocation that aim to balance the benefits and drawbacks of ecosystem restoration. Results show that forcing landowners to restore their individual lands compromises the potential for a "green land market" throughout the Amazon biome in which private landowners with lower food production capacities (e.g., less connected to markets and infrastructure) would benefit from restoration programs that compensate them for the inclusion of environmental restoration among their economic activities, instead of taking large economic risks to produce more food. We additionally highlight that strategic ecosystem restoration can achieve higher gains in biodiversity and carbon with lower costs of restoration actions and with minimal impacts on agriculture. Analyses like ours demonstrate how scenarios of land allocation that simultaneously address climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation through ecosystem restoration, while also minimizing possible impacts on food production, can be sought to move the world towards a sustainable future.

Physical and virtual nutrient flows in global telecoupled agricultural trade networks

Global agricultural trade creates multiple telecoupled flows of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). The flows of physical and virtual nutrients along with trade have discrepant effects on natural resources in different countries. However, existing literature has not quantified or analyzed such effects yet. Here we quantified the physical and virtual N and P flows embedded in the global agricultural trade networks from 1997 to 2016 and elaborated components of the telecoupling framework. The N and P flows both increased continuously and more than 25% of global consumption of nutrients in agricultural products were related to physical nutrient flows, while virtual nutrient flows were equivalent to one-third of the nutrients inputs into global agricultural system. These flows have positive telecoupling effects on saving N and P resources at the global scale. Reducing inefficient trade flows will enhance resource conservation, environmental sustainability in the hyper-globalized world.

The metacoupled Arctic: Human-nature interactions across local to global scales as drivers of sustainability

The Arctic is an epicenter of complex environmental and socioeconomic change. Strengthened connections between Arctic and non-Arctic systems could threaten or enhance Arctic sustainability, but studies of external influences on the Arctic are scattered and fragmented in academic literature. Here, we review and synthesize how external influences have been analyzed in Arctic-coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) literature. Results show that the Arctic is affected by numerous external influences nearby and faraway, including global markets, climate change, governance, military security, and tourism. However, apart from climate change, these connections are infrequently the focus of Arctic CHANS analyses. We demonstrate how Arctic CHANS research could be enhanced and research gaps could be filled using the holistic framework of metacoupling (human-nature interactions within as well as between adjacent and distant systems). Our perspectives provide new approaches to enhance the sustainability of Arctic systems in an interconnected world.

Carbon emissions from land use in Jiangsu, China, and analysis of the regional interactions

Land carbon emissions are primarily determined by land use type, and these emissions could be transferred during interprovincial trade activities. This study took Jiangsu in China as a case, assigned all the energy-related carbon emissions to land, and analyzed the transferred land use carbon emissions through the application of a tele-coupling framework. Finally, the physical spatial distribution of transferred land use carbon emissions within Jiangsu at high resolution was simulated. China and Jiangsu emitted 2.27 × 10⁹ t and 1.43 × 10⁸ t of carbon in 2012, respectively, with industrial and mining land being the biggest emission source, generating more than 70% of their total emissions. Overall, Jiangsu's net carbon emissions transferred to other provinces was 2.41 × 10⁶ t in urban land and 9.03 × 10⁵ t in industrial and mining land, and these carbon emissions were mainly transferred to Hebei, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia. Land utilization intensity and economic development influenced the carbon emission transfer to some extent. Other provinces also transferred a large amount of carbon emissions to Jiangsu, of which 2.57 × 10⁶ t was in urban land and 3.18 × 10⁷ t was in industrial and mining land. Our simulation showed that the emissions in both land use types exhibited a south-north difference within Jiangsu; more specifically, urban land carbon emissions were mainly concentrated in core urban areas, especially in Suzhou, Wuxi, and Nanjing, whereas industrial and mining land carbon emissions were mostly distributed in the periphery of core urban areas and along the Yangtze River. To balance economic development and environment protection, the government must limit the expansion of construction land (especially industrial and mining land), and developed regions should implement various types of ecological compensation measures to help less developed regions reduce carbon embodied in trade activities.

International food trade benefits biodiversity and food security in low-income countries

To achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to food security and biodiversity, understanding their interrelationships is essential. By examining datasets comprising 189 food items across 157 countries during 2000-2018, we found that high-income countries exported more food to low-income countries than they imported. Many low-income countries, especially those with biodiversity hotspots, increasingly acted as net importers, suggesting that imports from high-income countries can benefit biodiversity in low-income countries. Because low-income countries without hotspots have rapidly raised their amounts of food exports to hotspot countries, such exports might help further reduce negative impacts on biodiversity. The increasing complexity of food trade among countries with and without biodiversity hotspots requires innovative approaches to minimize the negative impacts of global food production and trade on biodiversity in countries worldwide.

Spatial mismatch of ecosystem service demands and supplies in China, 2000-2020

The supply capacity of ecosystem services (ES) in the past decades has shown a significant decrease globally, while ES demand capacity has increased. Identifying the spatial mismatch of ES supply and demand (ES S&D) can provide valuable knowledge about where the gaps are. Existing studies, however, lack specifics about the spatial mismatch of ES S&D-that is, few studies consider the coupling and decoupling relationship of ES S&D at the national scale. This study tries to fill the gap by examining the spatiotemporal distribution of ES S&D capacity in China from 2000 through 2020 using the land use/land cover matrix method. The spatial mismatch between ES S&D was ultimately identified by using coupling and decoupling analysis models. A continuous increase was found in the ES demand capacity in China during the period studied, while a continuous decline was found in the ES supply capacity. The coupling degree of the ES S&D was relatively higher in the plains areas. The strong negative decoupling was the dominant relationship between ES S&D, which was widely distributed in eastern and southeastern China. The spatial mismatch of ES S&D in China has increased substantially from 2000 through 2020. The findings in this study provide important implications for ES management and effective allocation of resources.

Climate Change and Water Dynamics in Rural Uganda

The purpose of this case study is to examine the effects of climate change on agricultural life in rural Uganda. Based on primary data, the authors examine major themes related to climate change and disasters as conveyed by individuals in a small agricultural region in Eastern Uganda. Specifically, we focus on the effects of living in constant threat of flooding and landslides. Results show that water is a major source of loss for most people, ranging from crop loss to contaminated water. Findings also point to the chronic nature of dealing with water issues, as opposed to acute. Further, our results indicate that disasters are a great equalizer among affected populations, with only neighbors to depend on in the aftermath.

Synergies and tradeoffs among Sustainable Development Goals across boundaries in a metacoupled world

Synergies and tradeoffs among the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within specific locations have been widely studied. However, there is little understanding of SDG synergies and tradeoffs across spatial/administrative boundaries although the world is increasingly interconnected and the United Nations aims to achieve SDGs everywhere by 2030. To fill such an important gap, we introduce a new theoretical framework and develop a general procedure of applying the framework to empirically evaluate SDG synergies and tradeoffs within and across boundaries, based on the concept of metacoupling. We work through our framework using the examples of tourism and panda loans between the globally important Wolong Nature Reserve for panda conservation and the rest of the world to evaluate their effects on six SDGs in Wolong and the other 66 panda reserves. Our analyses uncover a total of 17 synergies and two tradeoffs, of which 10 synergies and one tradeoff are internal to Wolong, while seven synergies and one tradeoff occur across reserve boundaries. Given the first empirical evidence about cross-boundary synergies and tradeoffs, it is our hope that this study provides a foundation for further research to reveal more SDG synergies and tradeoffs across boundaries worldwide. The findings will be essential to enhance SDG synergies and reduce tradeoffs across boundaries for achieving SDGs everywhere.

Alleviating water scarcity and poverty in drylands through telecouplings: Vegetable trade and tourism in northwest China

Water scarcity and poverty are among the most significant global challenges, especially in the world's arid regions. Many countries have been trying to address these challenges. Facilitated by the construction of infrastructure (e.g., high-speed rails) and development of services industries (e.g., hotels and resorts), telecouplings (human-nature interactions over distances, e.g., vegetable trade and tourism industry) are expected to alleviate both water scarcity and poverty, and have been much supported by the central government of China. However, the extent to which these telecouplings can save water and reduce poverty remains unclear and requires quantification. Employing the simulated results from an integrated hydrological model, crop growth model, and multiple socioeconomic data from a large arid region of northwest China, the Heihe River Basin, we evaluated water scarcity using a composite index that considered both water resources and poverty between 2000 and 2012, and assessed the effects of the vegetable trade and tourism on water scarcity and income. Our results show that the vegetable trade contributed 30% of the total water saving and brought an extra 33% of income to rural residents. The tourism industry's contribution of saving water increased from 1% of its total water use in 2000 to 22% in 2012 through its ongoing expanding market. Our results also implicate that future water sustainability is determined by climate factors and by social factors, such as population, economy, policy, and technological developments. Our study provides insights into northwest China and can be used to develop arid regions around the world to better manage natural resources and reduce poverty.

Metacoupled Tourism and Wildlife Translocations Affect Synergies and Trade-Offs among Sustainable Development Goals across Spillover Systems

Synergies and trade-offs among the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been hotly debated. Although the world is increasingly metacoupled (socioeconomic-environmental interactions within and across adjacent or distant systems), there is little understanding of the impacts of globally widespread and important flows on enhancing or compromising sustainability in different systems. Here, we used a new integrated framework to guide SDG synergy and trade-off analysis within and across systems, as influenced by cross-boundary tourism and wildlife translocations. The world’s terrestrial protected areas alone receive approximately 8 billion visits per year, generating a direct economic impact of US $600 billion. Globally, more than 5000 animal species and 29,000 plant species are traded across country borders, and the wildlife trade has arguably contributed to zoonotic disease worldwide, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We synthesized 22 cases of tourism and wildlife translocations across six continents and found 33 synergies and 14 trade-offs among 10 SDGs within focal systems and across spillover systems. Our study provides an empirical demonstration of SDG interactions across spillover systems and insights for holistic sustainability governance, contributing to fostering synergies and reducing trade-offs to achieve global sustainable development in the metacoupled Anthropocene.

Complexity of the Socio-Ecological Dynamics in Hong Ha Commune in the Vietnamese Highland—A Review through the Coupled Human and Natural Systems Framework

In Vietnam, government policies have led to improvements in the national forest cover and poverty situation. However, numerous recent case studies in the Vietnamese highland found that socio-ecological dynamics were highly complex on a local scale, resulting in unintended policy impacts and varying policy success among regions. While such complexity has become apparent, it has been difficult to understand and compare between regions, as assessment methods and targeted aspects of socio-ecological dynamics differed between case studies. In this review, complex socio-ecological dynamics in Hong Ha Commune in Thua Thien Hue Province were identified in published case studies and organized into complexity features based on the coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) framework, to make information more accessible and comparable under the widely applied framework. All complexity features of CHANS systems were identified in the reviewed literature, such as feedback loops (between illegal forest use and flood damage), heterogeneity (in incomes between Kinh people and ethnic minorities), and telecoupling (of the local livelihood through tourism). Based on its applicability to Hong Ha Commune, the CHANS framework is suggested to be applied in other forested areas of the Vietnamese highland to understand and compare complex socio-ecological dynamics and evaluate policy impacts.

Trait-based aerial dispersal of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

Dispersal is a key process driving local-scale community assembly and global-scale biogeography of plant symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities. A trait-based approach could improve predictions regarding how AM fungal aerial dispersal varies by species. We conducted month-long collections of aerial AM fungi for 12 consecutive months in an urban mesic environment at heights of 20 m. We measured morphological functional traits of collected spores and assessed aerial AM fungal community structure both morphologically and with high-throughput sequencing. Large numbers of AM fungal spores were present in the air over the course of one year and these spores exhibited traits that facilitate aerial dispersal. Measured aerial spores were smaller than average for Glomeromycotinan fungi. Trait-based predictions indicate that nearly 1/3 of described species from diverse genera demonstrate the potential for aerial dispersal. Diversity of aerial AM fungi was relatively high (20 spore species and 17 virtual taxa) and both spore abundance and community structure shifted temporally. The prevalence of aerial dispersal in AM fungi is perhaps greater than previously indicated and a hypothesized model of AM fungal aerial dispersal mechanisms is presented. Anthropogenic soil impacts may liberate AM fungal propagules initiating the dispersal of ruderal species.

A Metacoupling Framework for Exploring Transboundary Watershed Management

Water is crucial for ecosystem health and socioeconomic development, but water scarcity is becoming a global concern. Management of transboundary watersheds is inherently challenging and has the potential to lead to conflict over the allocation of water resources. The metacoupling framework, which explores the relationships between coupled human and natural systems that are nested within multiple different scales, has been proposed to inform more holistic management of transboundary watersheds. This paper provides the first attempt to apply a metacoupling framework to a transboundary watershed for an improved integrated understanding of this complex system at multiple spatial scales. It does so with the transnational Limpopo River watershed in Southern Africa, which covers 1.3% of the continent and supports the livelihoods of 18.8 million people living in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a growing gap between water availability and demand; the primary drivers are population growth and agriculture expansion. The novelty of the paper is outlining the importance of applying a metacoupling framework to transboundary watersheds, identifying the limitations to this application, and providing a detailed assessment of the steps needed to complete this application. We also identify directions for future research including application of a metacoupling framework to other transboundary watersheds and exploration of spillover effects and externalities within this and other transboundary watersheds.

Interface processes between protected and unprotected areas: A global review and ways forward

Land-use changes and the expansion of protected areas (PAs) have amplified the interaction between protected and unprotected areas worldwide. In this context, 'interface processes' (human-nature and cross-boundary interactions inside and around PAs) have become central to issues around the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This scientific literature review aimed to explore current knowledge and research gaps on interface processes regarding terrestrial PAs. At first, 3,515 references related to the topic were extracted through a standardized search on the Web of Science and analyzed with scientometric techniques. Next, a full-text analysis was conducted on a sample of 240 research papers. A keyword analysis revealed a wide diversity of research topics, from 'pure' ecology to sociopolitical research. We found a bias in the geographical distribution of research, with half the papers focusing on eight countries. Additionally, we found that the spatial extent of cross-boundary interactions was rarely assessed, preventing any clear delimitation of PA interactive zones. In the 240 research papers we scanned, we identified 403 processes that were studied. The ecological effects of PAs were well documented and appeared to be positive overall. In contrast, the effects of PAs on local communities were understudied and, according to the literature focusing on these, were very variable according to local contexts. Our findings highlight key research advances on interface processes, especially regarding the ecological outcomes of PAs, the influence of human activities on biodiversity, and PA governance issues. In contrast, main knowledge gaps concern the spatial extent of interactive zones, as well as the interactions between local people and conservation actions and how to promote synergies between them. While the review was limited to terrestrial PAs, its findings allow us to propose research priorities for tackling environmental and socioeconomic challenges in the face of a rapidly changing world.

Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change

The human impact on life on Earth has increased sharply since the 1970s, driven by the demands of a growing population with rising average per capita income. Nature is currently supplying more materials than ever before, but this has come at the high cost of unprecedented global declines in the extent and integrity of ecosystems, distinctness of local ecological communities, abundance and number of wild species, and the number of local domesticated varieties. Such changes reduce vital benefits that people receive from nature and threaten the quality of life of future generations. Both the benefits of an expanding economy and the costs of reducing nature’s benefits are unequally distributed. The fabric of life on which we all depend—nature and its contributions to people—is unravelling rapidly. Despite the severity of the threats and lack of enough progress in tackling them to date, opportunities exist to change future trajectories through transformative action. Such action must begin immediately, however, and address the root economic, social, and technological causes of nature’s deterioration.

Smallholder Telecoupling and Climate Governance in Jambi Province, Indonesia

Current debates on climate change have led to an increased demand for sustainable commodities. Serving this demand, sustainability certification schemes and eco-friendly labels have become prominent mechanisms of climate governance. Smallholder farmers in Jambi province, Indonesia, producing palm oil and rubber as the two dominant smallholder crops, are impacted by this distal demand. Zimmerer et al. (2018) suggest analyzing the potential sustainability in such a context with the multilevel smallholder telecoupling framework. Applying this framework to case studies from Jambi province, our first case reveals that smallholder certification for so-called sustainable palm oil does not necessarily influence smallholder towards more sustainable management practices. One explanation might be a discrepancy in sustainability perception between sender and receiver systems. The second case is the setup of an allegedly eco-friendly rubber plantation. The establishment of this model plantation is implemented by a transnational corporation in collaboration with a nature conservation organization, impacting the access to land for adjacent smallholders. The struggle over access to land is not only negotiated between smallholders and the corporation producing “eco-friendly” rubber but also between smallholders and big land mammals lacking access to land since the rubber plantation began to be established. We argue that the concept of sustainability as demanded by the receiving system does not mirror management practices in the sending system, even though the products reach the Global North as supposedly socially and climate-friendly. The smallholder telecoupling framework is helpful for assessing potential sustainability but can be expanded towards conflictive spillovers, second order effects, and a mismatch in sustainability perceptions in order to draw a more comprehensive picture.