Vanessa Hull

Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World

Interactions between distant places are increasingly widespread and influential, often leading to unexpected outcomes with profound implications for sustainability. Numerous sustainability studies have been conducted within a particular place with little attention to the impacts of distant interactions on sustainability in multiple places. Although distant forces have been studied, they are usually treated as exogenous variables and feedbacks have rarely been considered. To understand and integrate various distant interactions better, we propose an integrated framework based on telecoupling, an umbrella concept that refers to socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. The concept of telecoupling is a logical extension of research on coupled human and natural systems, in which interactions occur within particular geographic locations. The telecoupling framework contains five major interrelated components, i.e., coupled human and natural systems, flows, agents, causes, and effects. We illustrate the framework using two examples of distant interactions associated with trade of agricultural commodities and invasive species, highlight the implications of the framework, and discuss research needs and approaches to move research on telecouplings forward. The framework can help to analyze system components and their interrelationships, identify research gaps, detect hidden costs and untapped benefits, provide a useful means to incorporate feedbacks as well as trade-offs and synergies across multiple systems (sending, receiving, and spillover systems), and improve the understanding of distant interactions and the effectiveness of policies for socioeconomic and environmental sustainability from local to global levels.

Systems integration for global sustainability

Seeking systems-based solutions Without sustainable solutions, the worlds most pressing environmental concerns will continue to persist or worsen. Achieving the goal of sustainability involves so many factors—from economics to ecology—that investigating one or even a handful of variables at a time often overlooks major parts of the problem. Liu et al. review systems-based approaches that are beginning to provide tenable ways to assess sustainability. Further integrating coupled human and natural components of a problem across multiple dimensions, including how one solution can create unintended consequences elsewhere, is essential for developing effective policies that seek global sustainability. Science, this issue 10.1126/science.1258832 BACKGROUND Many key global sustainability challenges are closely intertwined (examples are provided in the figure). These challenges include air pollution, biodiversity loss, climate change, energy and food security, disease spread, species invasion, and water shortages and pollution. They are interconnected across three dimensions (organizational levels, space, and time) but are often separately studied and managed. Systems integration—holistic approaches to integrating various components of coupled human and natural systems (for example, social-ecological systems and human-environment systems) across all dimensions—is necessary to address complex interconnections and identify effective solutions to sustainability challenges. ADVANCES One major advance has been recognizing Earth as a large, coupled human and natural system consisting of many smaller coupled systems linked through flows of information, matter, and energy and evolving through time as a set of interconnected complex adaptive systems. A number of influential integrated frameworks (such as ecosystem services, environmental footprints, human-nature nexus, planetary boundaries, and telecoupling) and tools for systems integration have been developed and tested through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary inquiries. Systems integration has led to fundamental discoveries and sustainability actions that are not possible by using conventional disciplinary, reductionist, and compartmentalized approaches. These include findings on emergent properties and complexity; interconnections among multiple key issues (such as air, climate, energy, food, land, and water); assessment of multiple, often conflicting, objectives; and synergistic interactions in which, for example, economic efficiency can be enhanced while environmental impacts are mitigated. In addition, systems integration allows for clarification and reassignment of environmental responsibilities (for example, among producers, consumers, and traders); mediation of trade-offs and enhancement of synergies; reduction of conflicts; and design of harmonious conservation and development policies and practices. OUTLOOK Although some studies have recognized spillover effects (effects spilling over from interactions among other systems) or spatial externalities, there is a need to simultaneously consider socioeconomic and environmental effects rather than considering them separately. Furthermore, identifying causes, agents, and flows behind the spillover effects can help us to understand better and hence manage the effects across multiple systems and scales. Integrating spillover systems with sending and receiving systems through network analysis and other advanced analytical methods can uncover hidden interrelationships and lead to important insights. Human-nature feedbacks, including spatial feedbacks (such as those among sending, receiving, and spillover systems), are the core elements of coupled systems and thus are likely to play important roles in global sustainability. Systems integration for global sustainability is poised for more rapid development, and transformative changes aimed at connecting disciplinary silos are needed to sustain an increasingly telecoupled world. Illustrative representation of systems integration. Among Brazil, China, the Caribbean, and the Sahara Desert in Africa, there are complex human-nature interactions across space, time, and organizational levels. Deforestation in Brazil due to soybean production provides food for people and livestock in China. Food trade between Brazil and China also contributes to changes in the global food market, which affects other areas around the world, including the Caribbean and Africa, that also engage in trade with China and Brazil. Dust particles from the Sahara Desert in Africa—aggravated by agricultural practices—travel via the air to the Caribbean, where they contribute to the decline in coral reefs and soil fertility and increase asthma rates. These in turn affect China and Brazil, which have both invested heavily in Caribbean tourism, infrastructure, and transportation. Nutrient-rich dust from Africa also reaches Brazil, where it improves forest productivity. [Photo credits clockwise from right top photo: Caitlin Jacobs, Brandon Prince, Rhett Butler, and David Burdick, used with permission] Global sustainability challenges, from maintaining biodiversity to providing clean air and water, are closely interconnected yet often separately studied and managed. Systems integration—holistic approaches to integrating various components of coupled human and natural systems—is critical to understand socioeconomic and environmental interconnections and to create sustainability solutions. Recent advances include the development and quantification of integrated frameworks that incorporate ecosystem services, environmental footprints, planetary boundaries, human-nature nexuses, and telecoupling. Although systems integration has led to fundamental discoveries and practical applications, further efforts are needed to incorporate more human and natural components simultaneously, quantify spillover systems and feedbacks, integrate multiple spatial and temporal scales, develop new tools, and translate findings into policy and practice. Such efforts can help address important knowledge gaps, link seemingly unconnected challenges, and inform policy and management decisions.

Effects of attitudinal and sociodemographic factors on pro-environmental behaviour in urban China

SUMMARY Chinacurrentlyfacessevereenvironmentalchallenges, and information regarding the predictors of proenvironmentalbehaviourinChinaisneededtomanage them. This study addresses this need by modelling the sociodemographic and attitudinal factors predicting pro-environmental behaviour in urban China. Proenvironmental behaviour was modelled as a function of environmental attitude (measured using the new environmentalparadigm)andvarioussociodemographic characteristics. Respondents who were employed, holding leadership positions, living in larger cities and single were more likely to participate in proenvironmental behaviour. These results accord with previous studies suggesting being female, younger, highly educated and having environmentally oriented attitudes increased the odds of participating in proenvironmental behaviour. The rapid urbanization and economic development in China may significantly impact pro-environmental behaviour in the future.

Coupled human and natural systems approach to wildlife research and conservation

Conserving wildlife while simultaneously meeting the resource needs of a growing human population is a major sustainability challenge. As such, using combined social and environmental perspectives to understand how people and wildlife are interlinked, together with the mechanisms that may weaken or strengthen those linkages, is of utmost importance. However, such integrated information is lacking. To help fill this information gap, we describe an integrated coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) approach for analyzing the patterns, causes, and consequences of changes in wildlife population and habitat, human population and land use, and their interactions. Using this approach, we synthesize research in two sites, Wolong Nature Reserve in China and Chitwan National Park in Nepal, to explicate key relationships between people and two globally endangered wildlife conservation icons, the giant panda and the Bengal tiger. This synthesis reveals that local resident characteristics such as household socioeconomics and demography, as well as community-level attributes such as resource management organizations, affect wildlife and their habitats in complex and even countervailing ways. Human impacts on wildlife and their habitats are in turn modifying the suite of ecosystem services that they provide to local residents in both sites, including access to forest products and cultural values. These interactions are further complicated by human and natural disturbance (e.g., civil wars, earthquakes), feedbacks (including policies), and telecouplings (socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances) that increasingly link the focal systems with other distant systems. We highlight several important implications of using a CHANS approach for wildlife research and conservation that is useful not only in China and Nepal but in many other places around the world facing similar challenges.

Strengthening protected areas for biodiversity and ecosystem services in China

Significance Following severe environmental degradation from rapid economic development, China is now advancing policies to secure biodiversity and ecosystem services. We report the first nationwide assessment, showing that protected areas (PAs) are not well delineated to protect either biodiversity or key ecosystem services. This serious deficiency exists in many countries. We propose creating a national park system in China to help guide development along a path of green growth, improving the well-being of both people and nature. This involves establishing new, strictly protected PAs for biodiversity and ecosystem services that are highly sensitive to human impacts, as well as a new PA category—in China and ideally worldwide—for integrating biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human activities to achieve sustainable development goals. Recent expansion of the scale of human activities poses severe threats to Earth’s life-support systems. Increasingly, protected areas (PAs) are expected to serve dual goals: protect biodiversity and secure ecosystem services. We report a nationwide assessment for China, quantifying the provision of threatened species habitat and four key regulating services—water retention, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, and carbon sequestration—in nature reserves (the primary category of PAs in China). We find that China’s nature reserves serve moderately well for mammals and birds, but not for other major taxa, nor for these key regulating ecosystem services. China’s nature reserves encompass 15.1% of the country’s land surface. They capture 17.9% and 16.4% of the entire habitat area for threatened mammals and birds, but only 13.1% for plants, 10.0% for amphibians, and 8.5% for reptiles. Nature reserves encompass only 10.2–12.5% of the source areas for the four key regulating services. They are concentrated in western China, whereas much threatened species’ habitat and regulating service source areas occur in eastern provinces. Our analysis illuminates a strategy for greatly strengthening PAs, through creating the first comprehensive national park system of China. This would encompass both nature reserves, in which human activities are highly restricted, and a new category of PAs for ecosystem services, in which human activities not impacting key services are permitted. This could close the gap in a politically feasible way. We also propose a new category of PAs globally, for sustaining the provision of ecosystems services and achieving sustainable development goals.

Multiple telecouplings and their complex interrelationships

Increasingly, the world is becoming socioeconomically and environmentally connected, but many studies have focused on human-environment interactions within a particular area. Although some studies have considered the impacts of external factors, there is little research on multiple reciprocal socioeconomic and environmental interactions between a focal area and other areas. Here we address this important kowledge gap by applying the new integrated framework of telecouplings (socioeconomic and environmental interactions between two or more areas over distances). Results show that even a protected area - i.e., the Wolong Nature Reserve for giant pandas in southwest China - has multiple telecoupling processes with the rest of the world; these include panda loans, tourism, information dissemination, conservation subsidies, and trade of aricultural and industrial products. The telecoupling processes exhibit nonlinear patterns, they change over time, and they have varying socioeconomic and environmental effects across the world. We also find complex relationships among different telecouplings - e.g., amplification, offsetting, spatial overlaps - which cannot be detected by traditional separate studies. Such an integrated study leads to a more comprehensive understanding of distant human-enviroment interactions and has significant implications for global sustainability and human well-being.

Delayed implantation in giant pandas: the first comprehensive empirical evidence.

Successful conservation of an endangered species relies on a good understanding of its reproductive biology, but there are large knowledge gaps. For example, many questions remain unanswered with regard to gestation and fetal development in the giant panda. We take advantage of a sample size that is unprecedented for this species (n=13) to explore patterns in reproductive development across individuals at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. We use ultrasound techniques on multiple giant pandas for the first time to empirically confirm what has long been suspected that pandas exhibit delayed implantation of the embryo. We also show that the duration of postfetal detection period is remarkably similar across individuals (16.85+/-1.34 days). Detection of fetus by ultrasound was strongly correlated to the peak in urinary progesterone (r=0.96, t=8.48, d.f.=8, P=0.0001) and swelling in the mammary glands (r=0.79, t=3.61, d.f.=8, P=0.007) and vulva (r=0.91, t=6.40, d.f.=8, P=0.0002) of adult females. When controlling for both the duration of the total gestation period and the postfetal detection period, infant birth weight was only significantly predicted by the latter (beta=11.25, s.e.m.=4.98, t=2.26, P=0.05), suggesting that delayed implantation increases flexibility in the timing of birth but is not important in dictating infant growth. This study informs reproductive biology by exploring the little-studied phenomenon of delayed implantation in relationship to physiological changes in pregnant giant panda females.

Evaluating household-level relationships between environmental views and outdoor recreation: the Teton Valley case.

Outdoor recreation may foster positive environmental views among participants and their nonparticipating household members, but little research has addressed this hypothesis at the household level. We address this gap with a case study evaluating both the individual-and household-level relationship between outdoor recreation and environmental views using the new ecological paradigm scale (NEP). Results suggest NEP relates positively to appreciative outdoor recreation participation and negatively to nonappreciative outdoor recreation participation for participants and their household members. Future research should focus on how household dynamics mediate the relationship between environmental views and outdoor recreation.

Synthesis of human-nature feedbacks

In today’s globalized world, humans and nature are inextricably linked. The coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) framework provides a lens with which to understand such complex interactions. One of the central components of the CHANS framework involves examining feedbacks among human and natural systems, which form when effects from one system on another system feed back to affect the first system. Despite developments in understanding feedbacks in single disciplines, interdisciplinary research on CHANS feedbacks to date is scant and often site-specific, a shortcoming that prevents complex coupled systems from being fully understood. The special feature “Exploring Feedbacks in Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS)” makes strides to fill this critical gap. Here, as an introduction to the special feature, we provide an overview of CHANS feedbacks. In addition, we synthesize key CHANS feedbacks that emerged in the papers of this special feature across agricultural, forest, and urban landscapes. We also examine emerging themes explored across the papers, including multilevel feedbacks, time lags, and surprises as a result of feedbacks. We conclude with recommendations for future research that can build upon the foundation provided in the special feature.

How Perceived Exposure to Environmental Harm Influences Environmental Behavior in Urban China

Rapid environmental degradation in China makes understanding how perceived exposure to environmental harm influences environmental attitudes and participation in pro-environmental behaviors among the Chinese people crucial. We used a nation-wide survey dataset in urban China to test two hypotheses: experiencing environmental harm directly affects environmental behavior; environmental attitudes mediate the relationship between experiencing environmental harm and environmental behavior. We found respondents who experienced environmental harm had more pro-environmental attitudes. Experiencing environmental harm positively influenced pro-environmental behavior both directly and indirectly through the mediation of pro-environmental attitudes. Among the pro-environmental behaviors, environmental litigation was most strongly related with exposure to environmental harm. Our results suggest that more participation in pro-environmental behaviors may be expected as rapid economic development increases public exposure to environmental harm in urban China.