Disentangling the Local Coupling and Telecoupling of Urbanization and Ecosystem Services to Reveal Archetypical Social-Ecological Interactions in Urban Agglomerations

Investigating the spatial coupling between urbanization and ecosystem services (ESs) enhances the understanding of social-ecological interactions while addressing sustainability challenges in urban agglomerations. While most studies have focused on local coupling between urbanization and ESs, fewer have examined their telecoupling, considering the increasing interactions of distant systems. In this study, we developed a methodological framework to disentangle the local and telecoupling of urbanization and ESs in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, China. Urbanization and seven ESs were mapped, and their spatial coupling relationships were quantified. Different coupling interactions were further generalized through archetype analysis, and their influencing factors were identified. The results indicate that from 2000 to 2020, the number of counties with relatively high-level local coupling increased. Urbanization lagged or balanced with ESs in most counties. The number of counties with high-level telecoupling showed both increases and decreases across different ESs, revealing the spatial networks between urbanization and ESs. Areas with different local and telecoupling relationships were clustered into four archetypical social-ecological interactions. These interactions were distributed along the urban-peri-urban-rural gradient: three different types of telecoupling were found separately in mountainous, rural, and central urban areas, while the local coupling type was mainly distributed in peri-urban areas. Our study provides implications for the targeted land management of similar urban agglomerations. We suggest considering both local coupling to increase local self-sufficiency and telecoupling to improve ecological compensation, thereby fostering sustainable development.