Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

Publications

• SUSTAINABILITY - Metacoupled Tourism and Wildlife Translocations Affect Synergies and Trade-offs among Sustainable Development Goals across Spillover Systems

  Published on September 17, 2020

  We used a new integrated framework to guide SDG synergy and trade-off analysis within and across systems, as influenced by cross-boundary tourism and wildlife translocations.

• SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT - Synergies and tradeoffs among Sustainable Development Goals across boundaries in a metacoupled world

  Published on September 3, 2020

  Understanding SDG synergies and tradeoffs across spatial/administrative boundaries using the metacoupling framework using tourism and panda loans as an example.

• JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY - Working with Indigenous and local knowledge In large‐scale ecological assessments

  Published on July 27, 2020

  We review and reflect on how the GA worked with Indigenous and local knowledge and lessons learned.

• ECOLOGICAL MODELLING - Improving species distribution model predictive accuracy using species abundance: Application with boosted regression trees

  Published on July 24, 2020

  Insights into the applicability of using weighted approaches with other commonly used species distribution modeling methods.

• NATURE SUSTAINABILITY -- Impacts of International Trade on Achieving Global Sustainable Development Goals

  Published on July 13, 2020

  International trade positively affected global progress towards seven environment-related SDGs. International trade improved SDG scores of most evaluated developed countries but reduced the SDG scores of over 60% of the evaluated developing countries

• PEOPLE AND NATURE - Levers and leverage points to sustainability

  Published on July 1, 2020

  Applying a social–ecological systems lens, we identified eight priority points for intervention (leverage points) and five overarching strategic actions and priority interventions (levers), which appear to be key to societal transformation

• SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT - Alleviating water scarcity and poverty in drylands through telecouplings: Vegetable trade and tourism in northwest China

  Published on June 26, 2020

  Water scarcity evaluated using a composite index that considered both water resources and poverty and assessed the effects of the vegetable trade and tourism on water scarcity and income.

• PNAS -- Using gross ecosystem product (GEP) to value nature in decision making

  Published on June 8, 2020

  We develop a measure of gross ecosystem product (GEP) that summarizes the value of ecosystem services in a single monetary metric.

• BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION -- Microhabitat selection by giant pandas

  Published on May 25, 2020

  Findings shed new light on the importance of microhabitat characteristics that are generally overlooked in coarse-scale models in influencing giant panda habitat selection within the home range.

• PLOS ONE - Governing the Commons Beyond Harvesting: An Empirical Illustration from Fishing

  Published on April 23, 2020

  Our study highlights the importance of historically and contextually situating analyses linking the effects of pre-harvesting processes on harvesting outcomes, broadening the scope of inquiry beyond a narrow policy attention on harvesting.

• RESOURCES, CONSERVATION AND RECYCLING - Ecological civilization and government administrative system reform in China

  Published on April 13, 2020

  Understanding how China's recent adaptation of ecological civilization differs from previous national sustainability strategies is critical to evaluate how China’s eco-civilization can contribute to global sustainability.

• GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE - Quantifying interregional flows of multiple ecosystem services – A case study for Germany

  Published on March 20, 2020

  A first multi-ES quantification of a nation's use of ecosystem services from abroad.

• SUSTAINABILITY - Understanding How Smallholders Integrated into Pericoupled and Telecoupled Systems

  Published on February 20, 2020

  A 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.

• JASSS - Land-Use Changes in Distant Places: Implementation of a Telecoupled Agent-Based Model

  Published on January 31, 2020

  We construct a new type of agent-based model (ABM) that can simulate land-use changes at multiple distant places (namely TeleABM, telecoupled agent-based model).

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  JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY - Emerging risks of non‐native species escapes from aquaculture

  Published on January 6, 2020

  Non‐native aquatic species escapes from aquaculture facilities can result in serious aquatic bio‐invasions. We discuss aquaculture expansion and NAS escapes, illustrate emerging risks and propose recommendations for improved aquaculture management.

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  NATURE -- Assessing progress towards sustainable development over space and time

  Published on January 3, 2020

  In Nature, scientists show that indeed all sustainability, like politics, is local. China has improved its aggregated SDG score. At the provincial level, however, there is disparity between the country’s developed and developing regions.

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  SCIENCE - Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change

  Published on December 12, 2019

  Human impacts on life on Earth are unprecedented, requiring transformative action to address root economic, social and technological causes.

• AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM HEALTH & MGT - Using the telecoupling framework to improve Great Lakes fisheries sustainability

  Published on December 2, 2019

  Understanding the causes and consequences of complex social-ecological fisheries interactions and develop informed strategies for sustainable fisheries management and governance

• JOURNAL OF LAND USE SCIENCE - Land-use changes across distant places: design of a telecoupled agent-based model

  Published on November 18, 2019

  We apply the framework to design an agent-based model (TeleABM) that represents land-use changes in telecoupled systems to investigate how local land-use changes are affected by flows. The Brazil–China telecoupled soybean system is used as a demonstration.

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  ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS - Hidden cost of conservation: A demonstration using losses from human-wildlife conflicts under a payments for ecosystem services program

  Published on November 15, 2019

  Conservation programs can come with hidden costs -- often to vulnerable populations.