Abstract
Telecoupled flows of people, organisms, goods, information, and energy are expanding across the globe. Causes are integral components of the telecoupling framework, yet the rigor with which they have been identified and evaluated to date is unknown. We address this knowledge gap by systematically reviewing causal attribution in the telecoupling literature (n = 89 studies) and developing a standardized causal terminology and typology for consistent use in telecoupling research. Causes are defined based on six criteria: sector (e.g., environmental, economic), system of origin (i.e., sending, receiving, spillover), agent, distance, response time (i.e., time lapse between cause and effect), and direction (i.e., producing positive or negative effects). Using case studies from the telecoupling literature, we demonstrate the need to enhance the rigor of telecoupling causal attribution by combining qualitative and quantitative methods via process-tracing, counterfactual analysis, and related approaches. Rigorous qualitative-quantitative causal attribution is critical for accurately assessing the social-ecological causes and consequences of telecouplings and thereby identifying leverage points for informed management and governance of telecoupled systems.
Highlights
The scope and intensity of human-environment interactions have increased dramatically since the Industrial Revolution
Notes: “Other methods,” each representing a single paper, include interviews with amphipod crustacean fishers [54], focus groups with government officials associated with the East–West Economic Corridor (Vietnam-Thailand) [55], snowball sampling for interviews with soybean stakeholders [56], emergy analysis [18], multi-regional input-output analysis (MRIO) and stochastic actor-oriented modeling (SAOM) [57], change detection analysis combined with moving window analysis [58], Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) [59], and spatiotemporal coupled system dynamics modeling [60]
We found that current assessments of causality in telecoupling research have been mostly descriptive, due in part to the spatial and temporal complexities inherent in telecoupled systems
Summary
The scope and intensity of human-environment interactions have increased dramatically since the Industrial Revolution. In combination with qualitative description and tools such as statistical matching, synthetic control methods, and instrumental variables, counterfactual analysis can help researchers to explicitly understand the limitations of observational data, identify effects of treatment variables on response variables [41], and evaluate proximate (i.e., direct) and underlying (i.e., indirect, root) cause(s) of telecouplings in a rigorous manner that combines qualitative and quantitative knowledge [20,42,43]. RCA is one of many rigorous qualitative-quantitative methods for assessing proximate and underlying telecoupling causes that will help researchers decipher causal mechanisms, operationalize the telecoupling framework, and advance management and governance of telecoupled systems
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