Broader applicability of the metacoupling framework than Tobler’s first law of geography for global sustainability:A systematic review

Complex sustainability issues in the Anthropocene,with rapid globalization and global environmental changes,are increasingly interlinked between not only nearby systems but also distant systems.Tobler’s first law of geog-raphy(TFL)states“near things are more related than distant things”.Evidence suggests that TFL is not infallible for sustainability issues.Recently,the integrated framework of metacoupling(MCF;human-nature interactions within as well as between adjacent and distant systems)has been applied to analyze the interactions between nearby and distant coupled human and natural systems simultaneously.However,previous work has been scat-tered and fragmented.It is crucial to understand the extent to which TFL and MCF apply across pressing issues in sustainability.Therefore,we reviewed and synthesized sustainability literature that used TFL and MCF across seven major topics:land change,species migration,tourism,trade,agricultural development,conservation,and governance.Results indicate MCF had a much broader applicability than TFL for these topics.The literature using MCF generally did not or likely did not obey TFL,especially in trade,governance,and agricultural de-velopment.In the TFL literature,most topics obeyed TFL,except for species migration and trade.The findings suggest the need to rethink and further test TFL’s relevance to sustainability issues,and highlight the potential of MCF to address complex interactions between both adjacent and distant systems across the world for global sustainability.

Telecoupled land-use changes in distant countries

International food trade has become a key driving force of agricultural land-use changes in trading countries, which has influenced food production and the global environment. Researchers have studied agricultural land-use changes and related environmental issues across multi-trading countries together, but most studies rely on statistic data without spatial attributes. However, agricultural land-use changes are spatially heterogeneous. Uncovering spatial attributes can reveal more critical information that is of scientific significance and has policy implications for enhancing food security and protecting the environment. Based on an integrated framework of telecoupling （socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances）, we studied spatial attributes of soybean land changes within and among trading countries at the same time. Three distant countries -- Brazil, China, and the United States -- constitute an excellent example of telecoupled systems through the process of soybean trade. Our results presented the spatial distribution of soybean land changes-- highlighting the hotspots of soybean gain and soybean loss, and indicated these changes were spatially clustered, different across multi-spatial scales, and varied among the trading countries. Assisted by the results, global challenges like food security and biodiversity loss within and among trading countries can be targeted and managed efficiently. Our work provides simul- taneously spatial information for understanding agricultural land-use changes caused by international food trade globally, highlights the needs of coordination among trading countries, and promotes global sustainability.

Analysis of emergy-based metabolic efficiency and environmental pressure on the local coupling and telecoupling between urbanization and the eco-environment in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration

We use emergy-based urban metabolism analysis in this study to investigate the local coupling and telecoupling between urbanization and the eco-environment in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration. Our analysis encompasses the last 35 years spanning the period between 1980 and 2014. In addition, we analyze urban metabolic efficiency and environmental pressure in these couplings. There are three main conclusions of this study. First, we show that the total metabolic emergy value of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration has increased over the last 35 years, and that external elements have replaced internal ones as the leading contributors to urban metabolism in this region. The proportion of metabolic emergy derived from external elements increased from 30.87% in 1980 to 67.43% in 2014. The emergy extroversion ratio has continued to increase over our study period, while the development of this urban agglomeration had become progressively and more heavily reliant on external elements. Second, over the study period, the metabolic emergy intensity of elements of local coupling and telecoupling in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration has declined at an accelerating rate, from 1.15×10^(21) Sej/100 million RMB in1980 to 9.69×10^(19) Sej/100 million RMB in 2014. This reflects a continuous increase in the economic efficiency of this area.Correspondingly, emergy use per capita increased from 7.8×10^(15) Sej/person in 1980 to 5.83×10^(16) Sej/person in 2014, suggesting a gradual rise in the level of social welfare in this urban agglomeration. However, we also observed a consistently elevated environmental loading ratio(ELR) in our analysis in terms of metabolism of local coupling and telecoupling elements. This result indicates that environmental pressure has also increased constantly within the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration. Third,our analysis shows that the ELR of metabolic emergy from internal elements increased from 8.30 in 1980 to 43.46 in 2014, while the ratio from external elements increased from 4.15 to 92.03. Thus, we quantitatively investigated the dependency of development within this urban agglomeration on external elements as well as the resultant environmental load. The conclusions of this study provide the basis for quantitative policy-making in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, optimizing economic structures, improving economic efficiency, controlling environmental pollution, and promoting the coordinated development of this region.

New road for telecoupling global prosperity and ecological sustainability

China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to expand the ancient land routes that connect China to the Mediterranean Sea and corresponding ocean- based routes, is expanding global cooperation with profound socioeconomic and ecological implications. As China and associated countries are developing specific policies to implement the initiative, it is important to analyze and integrate major relevant issues. In this article, we discuss several major challenges facing the Belt and Road region: complex natural features, mismatched resources, shared ecological issues, and diverse socioeconomic conditions. To meet the challeng-es, we apply the integrated framework of telecoupling (socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances) and propose to enhance infrastructure connection, transboundary actions, scientific and cultural exchanges, and institutional innovations within the Belt and Road region;and collaborate with more interna-tional organizations and countries beyond the Belt and Road region for a prosperous and sustainable world.

A novel framework for analyzing the multiple interactions between humans and nature

Understanding the interactions between humans and nature in the Anthropocene is central to the quest for both human wellbeing and global sustainability.However,the time-space compression,long range interactions,and reconstruction of socio-economic structures at the global scale all pose great challenges to the traditional analytical frameworks of human-nature systems.In this paper,we extend the connotation of coupled human and natural systems(CHANS)and their four dimensions—space,time,appearance,and organization,and propose a novel framework:“Coupled Human and Natural Cube”(CHNC)to explain the coupling mechanism between humans and the natural environment.Our proposition is inspired by theories based on the human-earth areal system,telecoupling framework,planetary urbanization,and perspectives from complexity science.We systematically introduce the concept,connotation,evolution rules,and analytical dimensions of the CHNC.Notably there exist various“coupling lines”in the CHNC,connecting different systems and elements at multiple scales and forming a large,nested,interconnected,organic system.The rotation of the CHNC represents spatiotemporal nonlinear fluctuations in CHANS in different regions.As a system continually exchanges energy with the environment,a critical phase transition occurs when fluctuations reach a certain threshold,leading to emergent behavior of the system.The CHNC has four dimensions—pericoupling and telecoupling,syncoupling and lagcoupling,apparent coupling and hidden coupling,and intra-organization coupling and inter-organizational coupling.We mainly focus on the theoretical connotation,research methods,and typical cases of telecoupling,lagcoupling,hidden coupling,and inter-organizational coupling,and put forward a human-nature coupling matrix to integrate multiple dimensions.In summary,the CHNC provides a more comprehensive and systematic research paradigm for understanding the evolution and coupling mechanism of the human-nature system,which expands the analytical dimension of CHANS.The CHNC also provides a theoretical support for formulating regional,sustainable development policies for human wellbeing.

Spillover effect offsets the conservation effort in the Amazon

Diverse conservation efforts have been expanding around the globe, even under the stress of increasing agricultural production. A striking example is the supply-chain agreements put upon the Amazon forest which had reduced deforestation by 80% from the early 2000s （27,772 km2） to 2015 （6207 km2）. However, evaluation of these conservation efforts usually focused on the impacts within the Amazon biome only, while the effects that spill over to other areas （e.g., displacement of environmental pressure from one area to another） were rarely considered. Ignoring spillover effects may lead to biased or even wrong conclusions about the effectiveness of these conservation efforts because the hidden cost outside the target area of conservation may offset the achievement within it. It is thus impor- tant to assess the spillover effects of these supply-chain agreements. In this study, we used the two supply-chain agreements （i.e., Soy Moratorium and zero-deforestation beef agree- ment） implemented in the Amazon biome as examples and evaluated their spillover effects to the Cerrado. To achieve a holistic evaluation of the spillover effects, we adopted the telecou- piing framework in our analysis. The application of the telecoupling framework includes the interactions between distant systems and extends the analytical boundaries beyond the sig- natory areas, which fill the gap of previous studies. Our results indicate that the supply-chain agreements have significantly reduced deforestation by half compared to projections within the sending system （i.e., Para State in the Amazon, which exports soybeans and other agricultural products）, but at the cost of increasing deforestation in the spillover system （i.e., a 6.6 time increase in Tocantins State of the Cerrado, where deforestation was affected by interactions between the Amazon and other places）. Our study emphasizes that spillover effects should be considered in the evaluation and planning of conservation efforts, for which the telecoupling framework works as a useful tool to do that systematically.