Urban-rural interdependencies from an Earth system’s view – Principles and perspectives leading to new integrative and transformative research

Abstract

Recent advances in the Earth system sciences have enabled cross-scale analyses of the socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene. At the same time, research on the regional urban-rural interrelations has revealed mutual interdependencies, particularly referring to natural resource flows. While the Earth system sciences focus on the cumulative effects of human activities on the Earth system as well as the site-specific societal impacts of the Earth system change, there is little research on the specific potentials of utilizing urban-rural synergies for foster the sustainability of the Anthropocene. Based on the thematic examples of food, material, water and land use, the paper derives three fundamental principles: ‘circularity’, ‘spatial justice’ and ‘participation’. Two heuristic perspectives are considered particularly instructive to consistently address these three principles: ‘socio-ecological system thinking’ and ‘framing and governance’. In order to advance knowledge about these three principles and the two perspectives, an expansion of the existing research agendas is proposed. First, this covers the development of interdisciplinary frameworks that enable consistent description of the complex and dynamic urban-rural interdependencies and their interlinkages with the Earth system. Second, it involves the derivation of scientific references for regional targets embedded in the context of Earth boundaries and global societal goals. Third, transformative research needs to examine governance structures to enable common or shared frameworks. These should be used to design and monitor effective implementation.