Figure 1 - available via license: CC BY
Content may be subject to copyright.
Diagram of metacoupling. White arrows are local human-nature interactions within particular coupled human and natural systems (CHANS; Type 1, intracoupling). Black arrows are
Source publication
Human health and livelihoods are threatened by declining marine fisheries catches, causing substantial interest in the sources and dynamics of fishing. Catch analyses in individual exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and the high seas are abundant, and research across multiple EEZs is growing. However, no previous studies have systematically compared c...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... multi-EEZ research has been multidecadal [8,17,18], but no previous studies have systematically, simultaneously evaluated local, regional, and global flows of fish resulting from marine fishing within the world's EEZs and across adjacent and distant EEZs and the high seas to inform development of multiscalar, "metacoupled" fisheries management programs. Such programs stem from the metacoupling framework [19], a new paradigm for analyzing metacouplings: human-nature interactions such as fishing that occur within individual CHANS (intracouplings), between adjacent CHANS (pericouplings), and between distant CHANS (telecouplings; Figure 1). For instance, site-specific catches and local market sales of artisanal and subsistence fishers can be affected by the local and regional distribution of industrial fishing vessels, which in turn reflect regional and global policies of fisheries agencies and fishing companies [20]. ...
Context 2
... the metacoupling framework, all couplings (metacouplings and their constituent intracouplings, pericouplings, and telecouplings) are characterized by systems (CHANS), flows, agents, causes, and effects [19] (Figure 1). CHANS are classified according to their association with flows (movements of harvested fish, fish products, people, money, information, etc.) as "sending" (systems where flows arise), "receiving" (systems that receive flows), or "spillover" (systems that affect, or are affected by, sending-receiving system interactions). ...
Context 3
... study encompassed three types of fishing corresponding to the metacoupling framework's major components (Figure 1). Type 1 fishing (intracoupling) comprised industrial, artisanal, subsistence, and recreational catches and intranational flows caused by nations fishing within their own EEZs, including territories, collectivities, etc. Type 2 fishing (pericoupling) encompassed industrial catches in, and flows to and from, EEZs of adjacent nations (those sharing land/maritime borders; Figure 1). ...
Context 4
... study encompassed three types of fishing corresponding to the metacoupling framework's major components (Figure 1). Type 1 fishing (intracoupling) comprised industrial, artisanal, subsistence, and recreational catches and intranational flows caused by nations fishing within their own EEZs, including territories, collectivities, etc. Type 2 fishing (pericoupling) encompassed industrial catches in, and flows to and from, EEZs of adjacent nations (those sharing land/maritime borders; Figure 1). Type 3 fishing (telecoupling) included industrial catches in, and flows to and from, EEZs of distant nations (those not sharing land/maritime borders) and the high seas. ...
Context 5
... (Gulf of Thailand, 26.7), Bosnia and Herzegovina (26.1), Peru (23.9), and Turkey (Marmara Sea, 22.5; Figure S1). Metacoupling high-catch EEZs (87.5-97.5th ...
Context 6
... metacoupling framework advances fisheries science and management in important ways. First, it offers a systematic, broadly applicable method for understanding social-ecological complexities such as spatiotemporal catch and fish flow patterns and Type 1-Type 3 interactions, and gaining management insights such as fishery classifications by metacoupling type (Table S11) and catches relative to primary production (Figures S1-S4; Tables S2, S5, S7 and S10) [31,44,45]. Second, the metacoupling framework is an instrument for integrating social-ecological data spatially and temporally [19,[25][26][27], which advances conventional research methods that are largely locationspecific and either social or ecological. ...
Context 7
... Materials: The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4714/s1. Figure S1: Metacouplings (total catches) relative to primary production in hotspot exclusive economic zones (EEZs). These EEZs were in the 97.5th percentile of mean annual metacoupling catch/primary production (metric tons fish/metric kiloton carbon) in 1950-2014. ...
Similar publications
Co-management is advocated as a means to improve human equity and the ecological sustainability of common-pool resources. The promotion of co-management of fisheries often assumes the participation of resource users in decision-making ensures more ecologically sustainable outcomes than top–down management approaches while improving livelihoods and...
Citations
... The impact of distant systems is greater than that of adjacent systems, contrary to Tobler's First Law (Manning et al., 2023). This phenomenon is evidenced by factors such as cross-national tourism (Bowden, 2003), El Niño (Liu, 2023), virtual land in cross-border trade (Carlson, Taylor, et al., 2020), and shifting environmental impacts (Zhao et al., 2021). In 2017, Liu (2017) presented a comprehensive metacoupling framework, comprising intracoupling (e.g., human-nature interactions through CESFs within a province), pericoupling (e.g., human-nature interactions through CESFs between adjacent provinces) and telecoupling (e.g., human-nature interactions through CESFs between distant provinces) (Liu, 2017), offering innovative perspectives on comprehending and exposing human-ecosystem connections. ...
... These classifiers were then integrated into the flow matrix to calculate the actual performance of intracoupling, pericoupling, and telecoupling flows. Finally, drawing on methodologies from previous studies (Carlson, Taylor, et al., 2020), we utilized the proportion of CESF flow to determine the level of metacoupling performance. The formulas utilized are as follows: ...
In the metacoupling Anthropocene, tourism-based culture ecosystem services flows (CESF) can establish non-material bridges from the natural to the human system, even across vast geographic distances. However, there remains a knowledge gap regarding investigation of nature-related tourist travel patterns at geographic flow scales. To address this gap, we analyzed the intracoupling (within-province), pericoupling (adjacent-province), and telecoupling (distant-provincial) flow patterns using a sample of 143,681 5A attractions travel comments with Internet Protocol (IP) location data. Emotional preferences derived from travel reviews were then quantified using machine learning models in China's post-COVID-19 pandemic era. The results showed significant spatial differences in nature-based 5A-level CESF, China's telecoupling performance of CESF (0.34) is higher than pericoupling (0.20), but intracoupling (0.46) remains dominant. Tourists from northeastern provinces exhibited a preferences for telecoupling, while those from southwestern provinces showed intracoupling patterns. Forest ecosystems contribute nearly one-third (30.70%) of cultural services and are primarily characterized by intra-coupling patterns. Sentiment analysis indicated that tourists' emotional preferences vary with travel distance, with long-distance tourists tending to appreciate indigenous cultures. Overall, this study provides new insights into investigating the dynamics of CESF, which could inform policy actions aimed at revitalizing the tourism sector.
... For instance, some studies have highlighted habitat losses triggered by distant consumption through international trade 43,44 . The negative effects of distant activities on sustainable fisheries further challenge this geographical principle 45,46 . The results of this study suggested that the synergistic effects were 14.94% more pronounced in interactions between trade partners that did not share borders compared with those between neighbouring counterparts. ...
Domestic attempts to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a country can have synergistic and/or trade-off effects on the advancement of SDGs in other countries. Transboundary SDG interactions can be delivered through various transmission channels (e.g., trade, river flow, ocean currents, and air flow). This study quantified the transboundary interactions through these channels between 768 pairs of SDG indicators. The results showed that although high income countries only comprised 14.18% of the global population, they contributed considerably to total SDG interactions worldwide (60.60%). Transboundary synergistic effects via international trade were 14.94% more pronounced with trade partners outside their immediate geographic vicinity than with neighbouring ones. Conversely, nature-caused flows (including river flow, ocean currents, and air flow) resulted in 39.29% stronger transboundary synergistic effects among neighboring countries compared to non-neighboring ones. To facilitate the achievement of SDGs worldwide, it is essential to enhance collaboration among countries and leverage transboundary synergies.
... Similarly, articles dealing with the effects of climate change do not generally refer to a specific subsector. Articles dealing with a particular subsector mainly address crop production, whereas fisheries/aquaculture (Carlson et al., 2020;Doumbouya et al., 2017;El Mahmoud-Hamed et al., 2019;Touron-Gardic et al., 2022;Vázquez-Rowe et al., 2012) and, especially, animal production/livestock are generally overlooked. Many articles addressing crop production deal with water scarcity (Boulay et al., 2019) and irrigation (Borgia et al., 2012;Comas et al., 2012;Connor et al., 2008;Khatib et al., 2019) as well as pest management (Jeger et al., 2018;Showler, 2002). ...
The transition towards sustainable agriculture and food systems is necessary to address many challenges, such as food insecurity, climate change, and poverty. Research is highly needed to bring about such a transition. However, comprehensive analyses of the research landscape are often lacking, especially in developing countries. In this context, the present review provides a bibliometric analysis of the scholarly literature addressing agriculture and food in Mauritania. It draws upon a systematic review of 44 eligible articles retrieved through a search performed in June 2023 on the Web of Science. The analysis underscores many weaknesses of the research field: the annual output of articles is low; it focuses on environmental sciences to the detriment of social sciences and economics; more than three-quarters of the selected papers, despite dealing with Mauritania, do not involve any Mauritanian scholars; many of the prominent organisations are based outside Mauritania, especially in Europe, North America, and Oceania; the top ten affiliations include only two Mauritanian organisations; the most relevant funding agencies are based abroad; it focuses on crop production agriculture subsector and production stage of the food chain. However, there has been an increase in the number of publications, which might suggest an increase in interest in research on agri-food, and the research field is multidisciplinary. Promoting agri-food research is crucial to address the multiple challenges that Mauritania faces and facilitate the transition towards sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. Research in the field is also essential to unlock the potential of the agri-food sector in Mauritania.
... Research shows that intracoupling, pericoupling, and telecoupling change over time and across space. For instance, a project quantified global marine fisheries' catches within nations' exclusive economic zones (EEZs, intracoupling), within adjacent nations' EEZs (pericoupling), and within distant nations' EEZs and high seas (telecoupling) during 1950-2014 [70]. Results show that intracoupling accounted for 73% of all catches (4.3 billion metric tons [MT]), while pericoupling shared 13% (748.9 million MT) and telecoupling 14% (791.7 million MT). ...
... In general, all couplings increased considerably from 1950 until the late 1990s, when some declines began (Fig. 4). In some years, one of the coupling types increased or decreased more than others [70]. The three types of coupling interacted differently across fisheries. ...
... For example, intracoupling tuna artisanal and subsistence catches declined with increasing pericoupling and telecoupling industrial fishing, respectively. Cod subsistence catches decreased with increasing pericoupling and telecoupling industrial fishing and intracoupling artisanal fishing [70]. In terms of spatial distribution (Fig. 5), intracoupling was prevalent worldwide during 1950-2014, with an average of 208 EEZs (75.4% of all EEZs) annually. ...
Sustainability science seeks to understand human-nature interactions behind sustainability challenges, but has largely been place-based. Traditional sustainability efforts often solved problems in one place at the cost of other places, compromising global sustainability. The metacoupling framework offers a conceptual foundation and a holistic approach to integrating human–nature interactions within a place as well as between adjacent places and between distant places worldwide. Its applications show broad utilities for advancing sustainability science with profound implications for global sustainable development. They have revealed effects of metacoupling on the performance, synergies, and trade-offs of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across borders and across local to global scales; untangled complex interactions; identified new network attributes; unveiled spatio-temporal dynamics and effects of metacoupling; uncovered invisible feedbacks across metacoupled systems; expanded the nexus approach; detected and integrated hidden phenomena and overlooked issues; re-examined theories such as Tobler's First Law of Geography; and unfolded transformations among noncoupling, coupling, decoupling, and recoupling. Results from the applications are also helpful to achieve SDGs across space, amplify benefits of ecosystem restoration across boundaries and across scales, augment transboundary management, broaden spatial planning, boost supply chains, empower small agents in the large world, and shift from place-based to flow-based governance. Key topics for future research include cascading effects of an event in one place on other places nearby and far away. Operationalizing the framework can benefit from further tracing flows across scales and space, uplifting the rigor of causal attribution, enlarging toolboxes, and elevating financial and human resources. Unleashing the full potential of the framework will generate more important scientific discoveries and more effective solutions for global justice and sustainable development.
... The market of fisheries is strongly associated with dynamic and complex relationships between environmental and socioeconomic issues through space and time, including distant regions of the world (telecoupling) (Carlson et al., 2018). Although part of these interconnections is placed on a global scale (Liu, 2017;Herzberger et al., 2019;Carlson et al., 2020;Tromboni et al., 2021), local market sales by commercial fishers can also be largely affected by the local economy (Crona et al., 2015). On the ground, this means that consumers' expectations and demands may guide fishing selectivity (Carlson et al., 2020). ...
... Although part of these interconnections is placed on a global scale (Liu, 2017;Herzberger et al., 2019;Carlson et al., 2020;Tromboni et al., 2021), local market sales by commercial fishers can also be largely affected by the local economy (Crona et al., 2015). On the ground, this means that consumers' expectations and demands may guide fishing selectivity (Carlson et al., 2020). The productivity of the system (e.g. ...
... Given that people living in developed centers tend to focus their actions on economic opportunity, cash-based rather than a subsistence economy may encourage that behavior (Ruiz-Pérez et al., 2004;Stieglitz et al., 2016). Third, most of the time, local expectations and demands guide decisions to harvest and commercialize natural resources (Carlson et al., 2020). For example, in the Amazon, urban markets drive greater selectivity for fish species, with significantly less diversity in commercial catches (Tregidgo et al., 2021). ...
Fishing connects people, aquatic systems, places, and fish consumer markets all around the world. Our understanding of the magnitude and intensity of these interactions are comparatively scarce for some regions, and to date have mostly yielded insights to understand socioecological linkages within marine fisheries. Here, we investigated how socio-demographic and economic factors are associated with fishing selectivity in the Brazilian Pantanal wetland using data from the continental commercial fishing sector from 18 fisher colonies. Our results show that increasing unemployment can lead to a more specialized or selective fishery. In addition, the watersheds where more selective fishing is practiced were those whose colonies are closer to the state capitals that make up the Upper Paraguay River Basin. The general results support that Pantanal wetland fishers do not follow the global pattern of fisheries in regions with low development, which tends to behave more as generalists than specialists. On the other hand, we provide evidence that specialized fishing selectivity is associated with external market demand in a socioeconomic coupling. We emphasize the importance of socioeconomic policies to reduce social vulnerability of fishers, and of management strategies to maintain fish stocks in wetlands.
... For example, research found that migratory species conservation needs to take inclusive and global approaches and implement efforts in multiple metacoupled systems (such as breeding, wintering, and stopover sites) ( Hulina et al., 2017 ;López-Hoffman et al., 2017b ). In addition, distant consumptions through international trade were revealed to cause unexpected habitat losses ( Green et al., 2019 ;Lenzen et al., 2012 ) and generate negative impact on sustainable fisheries ( Carlson et al., 2020( Carlson et al., , 2019 . To tackle biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradations, both international and domestic conservation measures have been taken, such as international conservation financing ( Qin et al., 2022 ) and area-based conservation (e.g., nature reserve and national parks; Liu et al., 2015a ). ...
... (Forest) Conservation efforts in one place might offset sustainability in remote places ( Liu, 2014 ). Cross-boundary tourism and wildlife translocations also impact the trade-offs in between achieving sustainable development goals ( Zhao et al., 2020 ) International conservation interest affected by socio-ecological links between donating and receiving regions ( Qin et al., 2022 ) Sustainable fisheries management needs to consider telecoupled factors, such as trade and diseases, fishing catches in adjacent and distant exclusive economic zones (EEZs) ( Carlson et al., 2020( Carlson et al., , 2019 Nature-based tourism and biodiversity conservation in protected areas can achieve win-win outcomes ( Chung et al., 2018b ) TFL 2 (3%) Develop new models to track regional change in China ( Zhai et al., 2019 ) and Ghana ( Agyemang et al., 2017 ) MCF 38 (11%) Establishing general guidelines for governing metacoupled systems ( Eakin et al., 2017 ;Newig et al., 2019 ) Governing specific metacoupled systems (great lakes fisheries ( Eakin et al., 2017 ) and land systems ( Oberlack et al., 2018 )) Eco-certification ( da Silva et al., 2021 ) Environmental justice ( Boillat et al., 2020 ) TFL 14 ( 20% ) Cellular automata models ( Zhao and Murayama, 2007 ) Develop remote sensing indices ( Chen et al., 2016 ) Develop machine learning methods ( Cui et al., 2021 ) MCF 90 ( 26% ) Agent-based models ( Dou et al., 2020 ;Yang et al., 2022 ) Distant demand drives soybean production and expansion in Brazil ( Green et al., 2019 ;Schaffer-Smith et al., 2018 ) Local land-use decisions and distant decisions impact one another ( Newman et al., 2021 ;Rulli et al., 2019 ) ( continued on next page ) ( Olaniyi et al., 2020 ;F. Xu et al., 2020 ) Different areas correspond to different types of tourism ( Joo et al., 2017 ) MCF 9 (3%) Distant tourists impact water sustainability Yao et al., 2020 ) Nature-based tourism can support biodiversity ( Chung et al., 2018b ) Tourism can both link sites to spillover systems and act as a spillover system ( Liu et al., 2015a ) TFL 0 (0%) NA MCF 37 (11%) Trade of agricultural products, such as soybean ( da Silva et al., 2017 ), natural rubber ( Laroche et al., 2022 ), wood products ( Parish et al., 2018 ), is a main focus in the literature. ...
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 geography (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 (human-nature interactions within as well as between adjacent and distant systems, MCF) has been applied to analyze the interactions between nearby and distant coupled human and natural systems simultaneously. However, previous work has been scattered 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 had used TFL and MCF across seven major topics: land change, species migration, tourism, trade, agricultural development, conservation, and governance. Results indicate that the literature using MCF generally did not or likely did not obey TFL, especially in trade, governance, and agricultural development. 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.
... Spillover systems affect or are affected by the interactions between sending and receiving systems (Liu et al. 2018a). The couplings influence each other (Herzberger et al. 2019;Carlson et al. 2020). They also have a variety of ecological and socioeconomic effects Carter et al. 2015). ...
As the world grows more interconnected through the flows of people, goods, and information, many challenges are becoming more difficult to address since human needs are increasingly being met through global supply chains. Global shocks (e.g., war, economic recession, pandemic) can severely disrupt these interconnections and generate cascading consequences across local to global scales. To comprehensively evaluate these consequences, it is crucial to use integrated frameworks that consider multiple interconnections and flows among coupled human and natural systems. Here we use the framework of metacoupling (human–nature interactions within as well as across adjacent and distant systems) to illustrate the effects of major global shocks on the evolution of global interconnectedness between the early 1900s and the 2010s. Based on these results we make a few actionable recommendations to reduce the negative impacts of an ongoing global shock, the COVID-19 pandemic, to promote global sustainability.
... QGIS (Deininger et al., 2016), Freeware ArcGIS (Menzel et al., 2013), (Butler et al., 2013), (Camacho-Valdez et al., 2013, (Outeiro et al., 2015), (Liquete et al., 2013b, (Neugarten et al., 2016), (Miller et al., 2017), (Dvarskas, 2018), (Rakotomahazo et al., 2019), (Gacutan et al., 2019), (Havinga et al., 2020), , (Castrejón and Charles, 2020), (Sundblad et al., 2020), (Carlson et al., 2020), (Inácio et al., 2020) Commercial SPSS (Owuor et al., 2017) ...
Understanding and quantifying ES flows is essential for the sustainable management of social-ecological systems, as it directly captures the human-nature interactions within the system and not solely its individual elements. Especially in degrading marine systems, most ES assessments focus solely on either biophysical or socio-economic elements of these social-ecological systems, failing to directly capture the human-nature interactions. This systematic literature review aims to capture the state of the art of ES flow studies to improve the knowledge base on marine ES flows while highlighting knowledge gaps and discussing future research pathways. Within the review we extract information on: i) the ES flow definitions, classification systems, and indicators; ii) the scales of assessment and methods used to assess marine ES flows; and iii) the types of assessment outputs. 82% of the reviewed ES flow assessment methods were spatially explicit. 63% of the studies assess marine ES flows locally. Across-scale ES flows are rarely taken into account. We detect a broad range of conceptualizations within marine ES flow literature. We thus propose an updated definition for ES flows in which they are defined as a spectrum within the social-ecological system, within which different ES flow indicators are placed depending on the relative contributions of biophysical or socio-economic attributes. Based on the extracted information and detected literature gaps, we propose a set of four criteria that should be the minimum required information when referring to ES flows: i) the relative contributions of biophysical and socio-economic attributes present in ES flow indicators; ii) identification of the supplying and receiving systems; iii) the direction and branches of flows; and iv) the spatial and temporal scales across which ES flows occur.
... Under this conceptual framework, distant, adjacent, and local interactions may occur simultaneously and complementarily 17,18 . While the metacoupling framework has been used to evaluate the environmental outcomes induced by distant and adjacent interactions such as trade and has been successfully applied to many systems worldwide [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] , no empirical studies have been conducted to assess the economic and environmental effects of intracouplings (human-environment interactions such as soybean production within a system) and pericouplings (human-environment interactions among adjacent systems 16 ) within the context of a dominant telecoupling process (Fig. 1). To fill this important knowledge gap, this study focused on all the municipalities within the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil (a major producer of soybean for international and national markets 26 ), and evaluated socioeconomic and environmental outcomes of the soybean production at the producing municipalities and on neighboring municipalities. ...
Human–environment interactions within and across borders are now more influential than ever, posing unprecedented sustainability challenges. The framework of metacoupling (interactions within and across adjacent and distant coupled human–environment systems) provides a useful tool to evaluate them at diverse temporal and spatial scales. While most metacoupling studies have so far addressed the impacts of distant interactions (telecouplings), few have addressed the complementary and interdependent effects of the interactions within coupled systems (intracouplings) and between
adjacent systems (pericouplings). Using the production and trade of a major commodity (soybean) as a demonstration, this paper empirically evaluates the complex effects on deforestation and economic growth across a globally important soybean producing region (Mato Grosso in Brazil). Although this region is influenced by a strong telecoupling process (i.e., soybean trade with national and international markets), intracouplings pose significant effects on deforestation and economic growth within focal municipalities. Furthermore, it generates pericoupling effects (e.g., deforestation) on adjacent municipalities, which precede economic benefits on adjacent systems, and may occur during and after the soybean production takes place. These results show that while economic benefits of the production of agricultural commodities for global markets tend to be localized, their environmental costs tend to be spatially widespread. As deforestation also occurred in adjacent areas beyond focal areas with economic development, this study has significant implications for sustainability in an
increasingly metacoupled world.
... Because different livelihood activities may be interrelated, linkages between them can constitute additional pathways . The award-winning metacoupling framework has been successfully applied to a number of important issues such as global marine fishing (Carlson et al., 2020) and impacts of international trade on UN Sustainable Development Goals Xu et al., 2020). It can help uncover hidden systemic connections that may not be apparent when focusing on a particular system (Liu, 2017). ...
Integrating multiple external and internal processes into the evaluation of how payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs can affect socioeconomic outcomes allows us to distinguish the relative importance of each factor and identify specific strategies to enhance the desired outcomes of PES programs; yet, the methods available are limited. Based on the framework of metacoupling (human-nature interactions within and across adjacent and distant places), we developed an approach to distinguish the contributions and pathways of multiple influencing factors to socioeconomic outcomes by integrating linkages between influencing factors, livelihood activities, and socioeconomic outcomes. Here, the approach's operationalization is empirically demonstrated by identifying the impact of the Grain for Green Program (GFGP) and other external and internal factors influencing rural household income in China's Loess Plateau. We find that the local economy and investment rather than the GFGP were the dominant factors affecting income. With improved understanding of the pathways, several suggestions are proposed for the design and implementation of GFGP and other PES programs around the world. Our study highlights the necessity of applying integrated factors in evaluating socioeconomic effects of PES-a crucial input for guiding practice of PES programs to support sustainable development.