Spillover systems in a telecoupled Anthropocene: typology, methods, and governance for global sustainability

Liu, Jianguo; Dou, Yue; Batistella, Mateus; Challies, Edward; Connor, Thomas; Friis, Cecilie; Millington, James D.A.; Parish, Esther S.; Romulo, Chelsie; Silva, Ramon Felipe Bicudo; Triezenberg, Heather A.; Yang, Hongbo; Zhao, Zhongquan; Zimmerer, Karl S.; Huettmann, Falk; Treglia, Michael L.; Basher, Zeenatul; Chung, Min Gon; Herzberger, Anna; Lenschow, Andrea; Mechiche-Alami, Altaaf; Newig, Jens; Roche, J. F.; Sun, Jing

doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2018.04.009

Cited by 122 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Spillover effects were often overlooked when flows with adjacent or distant systems were not taken into account because of a tendency to view a system as either driving or being directly impacted by a particular process. When investigating a spillover effect, the focal system is neither a driver nor an intended recipient [55]; however, these "hidden" systems can yield critical insights to the benefits and repercussions resulting from today's global and accelerating network of system linkages. For example, the certified organic palm oil producers in Colombia might have been overlooked if attention was directed solely to large oil palm producers and traders as the initiator or recipient of a telecoupling flow; or to smallholders that have operations within the buffer zone of large agricultural investments in many regions of the world [69,70].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems

et al. 2020

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Increasing connections and influences from near to far have changed social structures, access to natural resources, and essential livelihoods of smallholders (i.e., those with incomes generated primarily from natural resources on small rural properties). However, the potential benefits and negative impacts from these connections to smallholders' livelihoods and social-ecological effects remain understudied. In this paper, we applied the frameworks of pericoupling and telecoupling (human-nature interactions between adjacent and distant systems, respectively) to systematically investigate how the flows linking smallholder systems to other systems affect their livelihoods, and causing varying economic, social, and environmental effects from case to case. We synthesized 12 cases of smallholder systems around the world that are linked to adjacent and distant systems through flows of goods, people, resources, and/or information. In each case, we summarized smallholders' agency, i.e., capability on the formation or operation of these flows, and the changes on livelihoods on the economic, social, and environment effects. Results suggest that strong smallholder agency is associated more with positive than negative effects. Smallholders with medium to high agency have greater overall well-being within the area of interest. Smallholders integrated in pericoupled systems often have strong agency. Being spillover systems in an intercoupled system (e.g., large-scale agricultural investments) can often cause negative outcomes unless smallholders have additional pericoupling flows. Our findings suggest one potential approach to ending poverty and increasing well-being for smallholders is creating and increasing pericoupling flows to empower smallholders for desired livelihood and social-ecological outcomes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several examples have used the different couplings to explore interactions between systems via different ranges of distance [52,53]. Thus, the metacoupling framework has proven effective in studying complex systems and interactions [47,54,55].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems

et al. 2020

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“…Systems that are indirectly affected by the exchange of long-distance flows are known as spillover systems [78]. Spillover systems are one of the most compelling parts of this framework, yet they are the most understudied [78,79].…”

Section: The Telecoupling Framework-a Potential New Frontier For Mpa mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Synthesis of Opportunities for Applying the Telecoupling Framework to Marine Protected Areas

2019

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The world’s oceans face unprecedented anthropogenic threats in the globalized era that originate from all over the world, including climate change, global trade and transportation, and pollution. Marine protected areas (MPAs) serve important roles in conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, but their success is increasingly challenged in the face of such large-scale threats. Here, we illustrate the utility of adopting the interdisciplinary telecoupling framework to better understand effects that originate from distant places and cross MPA boundaries (e.g., polluted water circulation, anthropogenic noise transport, human and animal migration). We review evidence of distal processes affecting MPAs and the cutting-edge approaches currently used to investigate these processes. We then introduce the umbrella framework of telecoupling and explain how it can help address knowledge gaps that exist due to limitations of past approaches that are centered within individual disciplines. We then synthesize five examples from the recent telecoupling literature to explore how the telecoupling framework can be used for MPA research. These examples include the spatial subsidies approach, adapted social network analysis, telecoupled qualitative analysis, telecoupled supply chain analysis, and decision support tools for telecoupling. Our work highlights the potential for the telecoupling framework to better understand and address the mounting and interconnected socioeconomic and environmental sustainability challenges faced by the growing number of MPAs around the world.

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“…The importance of footprinting approaches has been widely acknowledged in national and regional sustainability assessments to account for possible land use displacement and leakage effects (O'Brien et al 2015, Liu et al 2018, Wiedmann and Lenzen 2018. Research so far focused on the land footprint of food consumption and of different dietary patterns (Kastner et al 2011, Kastner et al 2012, Meier and Christen 2012, Giljum et al 2013, Meier et al 2014, FoEE 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the global cropland footprint of the European Union’s non-food bioeconomy

Brückner

Häyhä

Giljum

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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A rapidly growing share of global agricultural areas is devoted to the production of biomass for nonfood purposes. The expanding non-food bioeconomy can have far-reaching social and ecological implications; yet, the non-food sector has attained little attention in land footprint studies. This paper provides the first assessment of the global cropland footprint of non-food products of the European Union (EU), a globally important region regarding its expanding bio-based economy. We apply a novel hybrid land flow accounting model, combining the biophysical trade model LANDFLOW with the multi-regional input-output model EXIOBASE. The developed hybrid approach improves the level of product and country detail, while comprehensively covering all global supply chains from agricultural production to final consumption, including highly processed products, such as many non-food products. The results highlight the EU's role as a major processing and the biggest consuming region of cropland-based non-food products, while at the same time relying heavily on imports. Two thirds of the cropland required to satisfy the EU's non-food biomass consumption are located in other world regions, particularly in China, the US and Indonesia, giving rise to potential impacts on distant ecosystems. With almost 39% in 2010, oilseeds used to produce for example biofuels, detergents and polymers represented the dominant share of the EU's non-food cropland demand. Traditional non-food biomass uses, such as fibre crops for textiles and animal hides and skins for leather products, also contributed notably (22%). Our findings suggest that if the EU Bioeconomy Strategy is to support global sustainable development, a detailed monitoring of land use displacement and spillover effects is decisive for targeted and effective EU policy making.

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Spillover systems in a telecoupled Anthropocene: typology, methods, and governance for global sustainability

Cited by 122 publications

References 69 publications

Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems

Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems

A Synthesis of Opportunities for Applying the Telecoupling Framework to Marine Protected Areas

Quantifying the global cropland footprint of the European Union’s non-food bioeconomy

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