Telecoupling gains entry in new encyclopedia

Telecoupling, , has been included in a new reference work for Geography: The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology. 

The 15-volume work, published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., both in hard copy and online, is a resource for libraries, geographers, GIScientists, students and academic departments around the globe. Updated annually, encyclopedia is the authoritative reference work in the field of geography.

The world is increasingly interconnected through a variety of distant processes such as international trade, foreign investment, migration, and species invasion. The scholar who led the sustainability tool’s inception, Jianguo “Jack” Liu, Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and director of MSU’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, introduced both the concept, and later the framework of telecoupling, which refers to human–nature interactions over distances. It helps scientists across disciplines understand how such interconnections have enormous impacts on human wellbeing and the environment worldwide.