Metacoupled Analysis of Agricultural Land Use Change: How multiscale socioeconomic flows drive land use change

Keywords: Metacoupling, Land Use Change, Migration, Capital investment, Crop Trade, Socioeconomic Flows
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Agriculture is the largest global land use category, however the ways in which socioeconomic factors influence it across varying scales is still not understood. We applied the metacoupling framework to evaluate how crops, migration, and capital flows impact land use change from 1990-2015 in India and Argentina. Telecoupled (distant) flows of crops and capital led to increases in infrastructure for crop transport and the amount of crops grown in the focal nations. Pericoupled (adjacent) migration and investments provided the required workforce and capital to support the increased production largely intended for distant nations. Intracoupled (domestic) migration from rural to urban areas displaced agricultural land and resulted in LUC in other parts of the country. The combined impact of these flows resulted in a 4.87 Mha increase in land used for exports from 1990-2015 with 92% being used for telecoupled exports. Our results highlight how socioeconomic flows across different scales can each uniquely influence LUC and need to be incorporated into LUC policy and modeling.