Telecoupling Research: The First Five Years

Kelly E. Kapsar, Ciara L. Hovis, Ramon Felipe Bicudo da Silva, Erin K. Buchholtz, Andrew K. Carlson, Yue Dou, Yueyue Du, Paul R. Furumo, Yingjie Li, Aurora Torres, Di Yang, Ho Yi Wan, Julie G. Zaehringer and Jianguo Liu
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Kelly E. Kapsar: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
Ciara L. Hovis: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
Ramon Felipe Bicudo da Silva: Center for Environmental Studies and Research, State University of Campinas, Campinas, SP 13083-870, Brazil
Erin K. Buchholtz: Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Program, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Andrew K. Carlson: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
Yue Dou: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
Yueyue Du: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Paul R. Furumo: Department of Environmental Science, University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras, San Juan, PR 00931, USA
Yingjie Li: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
Aurora Torres: German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
Di Yang: Department of Geography, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Ho Yi Wan: School of Public and Community Health Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA
Julie G. Zaehringer: Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Mittelstr. 43, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Jianguo Liu: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: In an increasingly interconnected world, human–environment interactions involving flows of people, organisms, goods, information, and energy are expanding in magnitude and extent, often over long distances. As a universal paradigm for examining these interactions, the telecoupling framework (published in 2013) has been broadly implemented across the world by researchers from diverse disciplines. We conducted a systematic review of the first five years of telecoupling research to evaluate the state of telecoupling science and identify strengths, areas to be improved, and promising avenues for future study. We identified 89 studies using any derivation of the term telecoupling. These works emphasize trade flows, information transfer, and species dispersal at international, national, and regional scales involving one or a few countries, with China, Brazil, and the United States being the most frequently studied countries. Our review showed a rising trend in publications and citations on telecoupling, with 63% of identified telecoupling studies using the framework’s specific language (e.g., “flows”, “agents”). This result suggests that future telecoupling studies could apply the standardized telecoupling language and terminology to better coordinate, synthesize, and operationalize interdisciplinary research. Compelling topics for future research include operationalization of the telecoupling framework, commonalities among telecouplings, telecoupling mechanisms and causality, and telecoupled systems governance. Overall, the first five years of telecoupling research have improved our understanding of human–environment interactions, laying a promising foundation for future social–ecological research in a telecoupled world.

Keywords: telecoupling; coupled human and natural systems; social–ecological systems; human–environment interactions; systems integration; globalization; interdisciplinary research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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