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<p>In the Anthropocene, the expansion of urban and rural settlements has become a key driver altering the terrestrial surface, yet the latent ecological risks triggered by its multi-order propagation remain systematically underexplored. Therefore, drawing upon the theories of human-environment areal systems, telecoupling, and land-use spillovers, this paper proposes the concept of “cascading coupling.” This concept aims to dissect the underlying processes of impact transmission, shifting the research focus from the linkages between “origins” and “endpoints” to an analysis of the entire causal chain. We construct a dual-scale macro-micro theoretical mechanism to understand cascading coupling: at the macro level, external shocks are transmitted across systems through multi-order coupling relationships; at the micro level, this macro-process is underpinned by the cascading state transitions of individual units within systems. This process is manifested as urban and rural settlements—driven by population dynamics, economic factors, transport networks, and policies—encroach upon natural lands and croplands, propagating multi-order ecological effects through multiple pathways such as changes in spatial structure, neighborhood spillover effects, and distant land displacement. This process exhibits four fundamental characteristics: multi-level property, transboundary nature, time-lags, and latency. Future research should apply this theoretical framework to focus on urban-rural disparities to precisely delineate propagation pathways, develop dynamic simulation methods to overcome the challenges of time-lags and uncertainties, and construct nested local-to-global paradigms to address cross-scale challenges, thereby providing new theoretical perspectives and methodological support for resolving human-environment conflicts.</p>

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Cascading coupling between urban-rural settlements and the ecological environment

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月30日

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  • Zhitao Liu,
  • Chuanglin Fang,
  • Luotong Guan,
  • Menghang Liu

摘要

In the Anthropocene, the expansion of urban and rural settlements has become a key driver altering the terrestrial surface, yet the latent ecological risks triggered by its multi-order propagation remain systematically underexplored. Therefore, drawing upon the theories of human-environment areal systems, telecoupling, and land-use spillovers, this paper proposes the concept of “cascading coupling.” This concept aims to dissect the underlying processes of impact transmission, shifting the research focus from the linkages between “origins” and “endpoints” to an analysis of the entire causal chain. We construct a dual-scale macro-micro theoretical mechanism to understand cascading coupling: at the macro level, external shocks are transmitted across systems through multi-order coupling relationships; at the micro level, this macro-process is underpinned by the cascading state transitions of individual units within systems. This process is manifested as urban and rural settlements—driven by population dynamics, economic factors, transport networks, and policies—encroach upon natural lands and croplands, propagating multi-order ecological effects through multiple pathways such as changes in spatial structure, neighborhood spillover effects, and distant land displacement. This process exhibits four fundamental characteristics: multi-level property, transboundary nature, time-lags, and latency. Future research should apply this theoretical framework to focus on urban-rural disparities to precisely delineate propagation pathways, develop dynamic simulation methods to overcome the challenges of time-lags and uncertainties, and construct nested local-to-global paradigms to address cross-scale challenges, thereby providing new theoretical perspectives and methodological support for resolving human-environment conflicts.