Here, we apply the MCF to examine the impacts of single and multiple shocks on Ukraine’s agri-food sector and its coupled systems. The MCF captures specific interactions relating to food availability and access as well as system vulnerability to shocks at different scales, which is critical to the ongoing efforts to achieve several interrelated SDGs (Pereira et al., 2022).

We conceptually examine the dynamics across Ukraine’s interconnected systems using the MCF to illustrate the linkages within, between adjacent, and distant systems. We synthesize existing knowledge to clarify how shocks, such as conflict and disease spread, are propagated through coupled human and natural systems. We construct a set of four combinations of shocks and systems to identify and characterize the interactions that emerge at each spatial scale while using the MCF. The one shock-one system combination describes the couplings within Ukraine related to its agri-food sector and specifically influenced by the Russia-Ukraine war. The multiple shocks-one system combination expands the systems of interest to include the nearby and distant systems connected to Ukraine’s agri-food sector. The multiple shocks-one system combination broadens to include the interactions of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the war on Ukraine. Lastly, the multiple shocks-multiple systems combination encompasses interactions both within Ukraine and across nearby and distant systems affected by the war and pandemic. As each combination expands to consider more systems of interest, this reveals the relational complexity of multiple shocks and the characteristics revealed at different scales of analysis.

Approaches using the MCF are categorized as empirical (quantitative analysis) or synthetic (integrating prior research that had not previously applied the MCF) (Carlson et al., 2020b). We utilize a synthetic approach by reviewing the current literature and identifying articles that fit the dimensions (number of relevant systems or shocks) for each combination. We conducted a literature search using Google Scholar and Web of Science Core Collection to identify scientific articles, book chapters, and government reports related to our systems and shocks of interest. Reputable news sources that provided timely or contextual information were also included when appropriate. Only texts written in English were included and publications were limited to peer-reviewed journals, chapters from edited volumes, and official websites of governments, institutions, or organizations involved in the ongoing management of the war, global food security, and the pandemic. Sources were selected based on their relevance to each scale of analysis and their contribution to understanding interactions across metacoupled scales. The search was limited to the timeframe 2000 to 2025 to encompass foundational CHANS and shock literature. The included sources were organized into the relevant combination(s) according to the components and relationships defined by the MCF to identify key interactions, patterns, flows, and effects.

Applications of the MCF can improve upon previous studies that did not consider the MCF or only applied subsets of the framework, such as telecoupling. For example, Chai et al. (2024) measured the telecoupled impacts in different scenarios of the Russia-Ukraine war and revealed new findings such as how global cropland in distant countries could expand and influence the severity of biodiversity loss. Applying the MCF can extend this analysis by bridging the local to global scales through integrating regional linkages at the pericoupled scale and by incorporating feedbacks that connect local and distant systems. Therefore, our conceptualization here with the MCF can support future quantitative assessments and deeper quantitative analyses that measure the specific empirical impacts of each shock on the respective flows and components.

Our approach to outlining the one shock and one system example mirrors the intracoupling framework. In this case, the single shock is the Russia-Ukraine war, and the focal system is Ukraine. Therefore, the intracoupled interactions in this combination are those occurring within Ukraine’s boundaries (i.e., system boundaries). We set our temporal scale by classifying the start of the shock as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The war is still ongoing so there is no definitive end to the shock.

The primary intracouplings of interest are within Ukraine’s agri-food sector, which has rapidly grown over the past several decades (Kholoshyn et al., 2021). The share of agricultural products as part of Ukraine’s total exports made up less than 15% in 2010 and grew to more than a third in 2019 (Kholoshyn et al., 2021). By January 2020, 50% of Ukraine’s total exports were agricultural products (Kholoshyn et al., 2021). The growth of Ukraine’s agricultural industry is reflected by the escalating demand from foreign consumers, the rapid rise in agricultural yields and production, and the expansion of new markets (Kholoshyn et al., 2021). As summarized in Table 2, the war has multiple economic, environmental, and social causes and effects at the intracoupled scale on Ukraine’s agri-food production and trade, with multiple implications for several SDGs. For example, the war has caused damage to agricultural machinery, storage areas, and resulted in the loss of livestock (Hryhorczuk et al., 2024). As of February 2023, the war had cost the sector over $6.6 billion (USD) in total value of damages and approximately $34.25 billion (USD) in agriculture-based revenue losses (Welsh, 2023). There have also been other types of infrastructure, such as water systems, damaged in the war that are likely to impact Ukraine’s ability to produce food in the future, directly corresponding to impacts on SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) (Pereira et al., 2022).

A significant intracoupled effect of the war was severe damage to the Kakhovka dam and power plant due to an explosion in 2023, which resulted in several parts of the dam being destroyed (Gleick et al., 2023). Following World War II, the Geneva Convention prohibited the weaponization of water systems against civilians (Gleick et al., 2023). Despite these bans, there have still been several recorded instances of water-related incidents worldwide (Gleick et al., 2023). The Kakhovka dam was the largest hydrotechnical facility ever destroyed by war (Vyshnevskyi et al., 2023).

Downstream of the dam, numerous hectares of farmland were ruined, whereas upstream of the reservoir, as many as 580,000 hectares faced water shortages in the following year (Gleick et al., 2023), further threatening food availability and progress toward SDG 2 and 6. Ecological shifts due to the destroyed dam have led to the emergence of several new plant habitats over the barren lake bed (The Economist, n.d.).

In addition, connected water systems in Ukraine have been polluted due to heavy metals from ammunition leaching into the water, affecting the water quality and degradation of soil and resulting food safety produced from those irrigated fields (Pereira et al., 2022; Shumilova et al., 2023). This series of impacts on water mirrors the impacts of climate change, which similarly have led to increasing desertification and a decline in water accessibility worldwide, representing broader challenges in realizing SDG 2 as well as SDG 6 (Dvigun et al., 2022).

Reduced water accessibility in this region is also accompanied by compromised food security that has led to the World Food Programme launching an operation to provide food to Ukrainian refugees (Leal Filho et al., 2023). These compromises to citizens’ access and availability to food, combined with a loss of ecosystem services, landscape aesthetics, social cohesion, and cultural heritage, have reduced the adaptive capacity of local communities (Pereira et al., 2022). This shift in local communities’ capacity is also exacerbated by farmers leaving the agricultural sector to join Ukraine’s armed forces, altering the workforce make-up and intensifying pressure on food production (Welsh, 2023). These economic, environmental, and social effects represent how the war has undermined SDGs 2 and 6 while also contributing to weakened community resilience and greater vulnerability to future shocks or disasters (SDG Target 11.5). These effects also influence various agents such as agricultural producers, farmers, citizens, consumers, and aquatic ecological communities through flows involving water, crops, money, infrastructure debris, and pollutants. These intracoupled effects lead to pericoupled and telecoupled effects that can be examined by assessing multiple systems.

Expanding the singular shock (i.e., Russia-Ukraine war) example to multiple systems in the MCF means encompassing the associated pericouplings and telecouplings connected with Ukraine’s agri-food sector. The pericoupled and telecoupled receiving systems of interest are importing countries of Ukraine food exports (e.g., grains). Examples of major receiving systems are countries that rely on wheat imports from Ukraine: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yemen (Leal Filho et al., 2023). Similar to the one shock and one system combination above, the primary flows connecting Ukraine to these countries include movements of crops, food products, money, information, and people.

Food price spikes are a central effect of the war on Ukraine and its metacoupled countries. However, these price spikes represent a greater systemic disruption, also linked to rising energy costs, displacement of citizens, and reduced food availability (Hryhorczuk et al., 2024; Hryhoruk et al., 2021). Reduced food availability is characterized by diminished agricultural production, loss of storage capacity and livestock, and damaged infrastructure (Hryhorczuk et al., 2024). Trade flows have been disturbed, with many countries experiencing reduced imports from Ukraine. Ukraine is a major cereal producer in the Black Sea Region and prior to the war sent 98% of its grain exports through the Black Sea (Voicilas and Kalaman, 2020). Yet, the destruction and blockades by Russia on Ukrainian Black Sea ports have forced Ukraine. This reduction in Ukraine’s grain export capacity has altered the flow of crops and products from Ukraine to some countries, with land routes unable to offset these obstacles. From 2021 to 2022, the value of cereal grain exports to countries adjacent to Ukraine (Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia) increased over 6,000%, from $40 million to $2.4 billion (USD), as Ukraine sought alternate routes for its exports (UN Comtrade, n.d.). Exports of grains from Ukraine to Romania saw the largest increase in value, roughly $1.3 billion from 2021 to 2022, and exports from Ukraine to Slovakia saw the largest percent increase. The increase in cereal market exports from Ukraine to other Eastern European countries is a result of the EU member states attempting to assuage the economic impact of the Russian invasion and blockades (Antoneac et al., 2023).

This widespread crop reduction in Ukraine’s exports has prompted many countries to prioritize their own food security and sell their crops domestically to safeguard against price spikes (Osendarp et al., 2022; Polansek, 2022). Within 2 months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the number of countries imposing such export restrictions climbed from three to sixteen and further contributed to global crop price spikes (Lin et al., 2023; Glauber et al., 2022). Together these impacts on food access and availability directly hinder progress toward SDG 2 (Liu et al., 2023).

The Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) was established after several months of exporting difficulties. The BSGI permitted the safe passage of Ukrainian exports through three key ports: Chornomorsk, Odesa, and Yuzhny/Pivdennyi. The initiative’s main goal was to reduce the risk of escalating the global food crisis and prioritize limiting food price inflation as well as sending cargo to low-and lower-middle-income countries. Following the creation of the BSGI, global food prices decreased over five consecutive months and by about 23% since their peak in March 2022 (Leal Filho et al., 2023; Bizzarri, 2022).

The significant and abrupt impacts on Ukraine’s interconnected food trade have led to research that links the preexisting vulnerabilities of the country to the intensity of the shock’s impacts. For example, inefficient trade logistics already affecting Ukraine’s export profitability (estimated to cost the industry between $0.6 and $1.6 billion annually) before the war were subsequently exacerbated by it (International Trade Administration, 2023). These complex dynamics highlight important components of temporal telecouplings to consider, such as time lags and legacy effects. Time lags represent the delayed onset of a shock’s impacts; in this case, the time lag is characterized by Ukraine’s underlying weaknesses accumulating over time and becoming evident after the war occurs. In the future, legacy effects such as war-related damage to infrastructure, trade routes, other institutions, and geopolitical tensions are likely to persist long after the shock. While it is difficult to recognize these cascading effects over time before they fully materialize, it is necessary to prevent further path dependencies that may indefinitely reduce a system’s resilience and lead to greater vulnerability in the future.

This shock-system combination fits well when structured with the MCF. The MCF demonstrates how the effects (e.g., disruption of exports) influence agents (e.g., government actors) to utilize information flows and mitigate impacts in adjacent systems (e.g., importing countries) by maintaining sufficient flows of physical products (e.g., movement of goods). The response to the shock by agents, such as government actors, enacts policy like the BSGI (Bizzarri, 2022) to help strengthen system resilience and result in positive impacts on other systems’ interconnected livelihoods.

Many agents affected at the intracoupled scale are similarly impacted in this combination, such as consumers, farmers, trade companies, and government actors. Intracoupled agents are directly involved with production, trade, and export capacity with policy action at the intracoupled scale focused on strengthening local governance, agricultural infrastructure, and shock relief mechanisms [e.g., Ukraine’s State Programme provided over 77,000 loans to affected farming business entities, totaling approximately UAH 260.2 billion (Dorosh et al., 2024)]. At the pericoupled scale, regional governments and authorities coordinate policies and trade agreements to ensure the flow of food and goods or minimize risk [e.g., EU’s Solidarity Lanes Initiative between Ukraine and its adjacent EU neighbors to improve regional trade overland (Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, 2022)]. Lastly, at the telecoupled scale, international coalitions and humanitarian organizations implement widespread aid relief and policy interventions to mitigate food insecurity and help stabilize market prices [e.g., Black Sea Grain Initiative (Bizzarri, 2022)].

Since we expanded the scale of analyses to include pericoupled and telecoupled interactions, we noticed similar effects, such as food insecurity, inflation, and product scarcity, among neighboring and distant systems. Expanding the scale of analyses is important to fully see the reach of the shock’s consequences and determine when or how agents should act. Initiatives such as those by the World Food Program or the BSGI can be implemented to relieve strain on the focal system and coupled systems. The magnitude of impacts may differ due to the unique attributes and vulnerability of each receiving system (e.g., country’s GDP, average income level). The vulnerability of adjacent and distant countries is crucial in understanding how they will be affected by shocks. Then, such analyses can examine the commonalities between components of adjacent and distant systems (Tierney, 2019).

By expanding the time of reference back to 2020, Ukraine’s agri-food sector has experienced multiple shocks—the COVID-19 pandemic and the war. In the two sections above, we focused only on the war’s couplings in the one shock combinations. Now, we use the MCF to examine how the pandemic’s initial emergence 2 years prior weakened Ukraine’s agri-food sector and supply chain, making it more vulnerable to impacts of the war. This demonstrates how changing the time of reference affects the interpretation of metacoupling interactions. These multiple shock combinations reveal that multifaceted shocks such as the pandemic and war have led to many socioeconomic and environmental effects in Ukraine and beyond. Analyzing multiple shocks using the MCF highlights how expanding the temporal lens can influence which effects are attributed to which causes and how compounding shocks contribute to reduced system resilience.

However, increasing the time frame and number of shocks being examined also increases the difficulty when distinguishing the effects of each shock. Organizing multiple shocks using the MCF helps identify pathways of vulnerability and increase understanding of the factors that influence systems’ susceptibility to future shocks, especially when these shocks overlap in space and/or time, leading to compounding effects.

The shock of COVID-19 caused similar effects on Ukraine as the Russia-Ukraine war, such as disruptions throughout the food supply chain due to production shutdowns and other associated lockdowns, ultimately leading to significant spikes in food prices locally (Boyacι-Gündüz et al., 2021). These supply chain disruptions deterred progress toward SDG 2 by limiting the availability and affordability of nutritious food (Pereira et al., 2022). Potatoes and pork were the most affected food groups, with sugar and eggs also experiencing significant price increases of 46.2 and 30.4%, respectively (Vasylieva, 2021). The severe fluctuations in prices hindered access to certain food groups and balanced diets across the country, ultimately contributing to reduced livelihood and affecting a core component of SDG 2 (Pereira et al., 2022; Vasylieva, 2021).

The war further exacerbated food prices and intensified the threat of food shortages (Leal Filho et al., 2023). Crop production particularly suffered due to the war, with a significant loss of 7.58% in abandoned cropland and a staggering 33.02% in cultivated cropland in 2022 (He et al., 2023). As the war continues, rising cultivation costs and restrictions on grain transportation have caused huge losses to Ukraine’s grain production. In the 2023–24 July–June season, Ukrainian grain exports experienced a significant decline of 29.7%, reaching 8.3 million metric tons—expected losses could exceed $3.2 billion (Polityuk, 2023). These threats to food security and sustainable water and land use hinder the achievements of SDG 2 and 6, while highlighting the importance of improving resilience of local food sectors to future shocks (SDG Target 11.5).

Multiple shocks have also placed severe strain on public health in Ukraine. As one of the nations with the weakest health systems in the post-Soviet Union countries, Ukraine’s health system has demonstrated difficulty responding to outbreaks in an effective and timely manner (Kitamura et al., 2022; Matiashova et al., 2021). Before the broad-scale conflict in February of 2022, there had been 4.4 million COVID-19 infections in Ukraine since the beginning of the pandemic, resulting in 105,505 deaths (World Bank, Government of Ukraine, European Commission, 2022). The destruction of healthcare infrastructure and mass migration caused by the war further deteriorated public health in Ukraine, with many people migrating to western and southeastern parts of the country with poorer vaccination coverage (Mehta et al., 2023). It is generously estimated that about 4 million Ukrainians have emigrated from the country since the initial invasion and approximately 7 million people are internally displaced (Boyacι-Gündüz et al., 2021). Other challenges that the prevention and treatment of the COVID-19 pandemic faced were to its chronic care treatment and health prevention services (Patel and Erickson, 2022), which has further limited the population’s capacity to maintain health and productivity.

The deterioration of public health during the pandemic directly limited labor availability, agricultural productivity, and food distribution, affecting Ukraine’s agri-food sector significantly and delaying progress toward SDGs 2 and 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) given the notable health impacts. This shock-system combination reveals how multiple shocks’ effects have propagated throughout social and economic dimensions in time and space, intertwining human well-being with food system resilience. The agents most affected in this combination are Ukrainian citizens, farmers, traders, and public health or service workers. In conclusion, the compounding effects of multiple shocks have strained Ukraine’s vulnerable public health system and agri-food sector, leading to the need for rapid implementation of resilient remediation efforts in preparation for future shocks which can help fulfill SDG 11.

This combination encompasses the adjacent and distant systems connected with Ukraine’s agri-food sector that are affected by COVID-19 and the war. The effects of multiple shocks extend beyond Ukraine, therefore, it is important to broaden the scope of reference. This combination illustrates all three types of couplings in the MCF with a focus on Ukraine’s agri-food sector and demonstrates that while complexity may be minimized by isolating certain systems, important effects and feedback can be missed unless adjacent and distant systems are considered (Figure 3).

Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects on food security. Approximately 2.37 billion people were estimated to not have access to sufficient food in 2020 (Leal Filho et al., 2023). FAO reported that the Russia-Ukraine war has further weakened food and energy markets globally that did not have a chance to fully recover from the pandemic (Leal Filho et al., 2023). This is a similar effect in these pericoupled and telecoupled systems to what we saw occurring within Ukraine at the intracoupled scale.

The hindrance of trade under major shocks such as the pandemic and war has far-reaching impacts. These ramifications affect pericoupled and telecoupled systems linked to Ukraine, as Ukraine’s ability to export food to dependent countries is significantly diminished. The decline in the amount of food exports has threatened the food security of numerous countries, especially in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel (Leal Filho et al., 2023; Behnassi and El Haiba, 2022). The Middle East and North Africa receive about a third of their cereal supplies from Ukraine, while East Africa depends on Ukraine for approximately 45% of their cereal imports (Leal Filho et al., 2023). Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and Lebanon each source 30% of their wheat imports from Ukraine. The significant number of products that Ukraine supplies to these areas indicates that a substantial proportion of people are experiencing food insecurity, especially in already vulnerable countries (Leal Filho et al., 2023).

These cross-scale effects highlight the challenges of overcoming food insecurity to achieve SDG 2 at the global scale, where such crises can reverse progress in distant countries. The considerable increase in food prices further contributes to global food insecurity as a result of affected patterns of global trade (e.g., Black Sea), production, and consumption (Leal Filho et al., 2023). Farmers that depend on these crops for financial support are having their livelihoods disturbed and facing parallel economic insecurity to consumers affected by rising food prices. Currently, the FAO reports that approximately 600 million people worldwide will be undernourished in 2030. Compared to a scenario unaffected by either the pandemic or the Russia-Ukraine war, these shocks affect about 119 million more individuals (Leal Filho et al., 2023). Even if only the pandemic occurred and there were no war, an additional 23 million people would still be impacted (Leal Filho et al., 2023).

Another study examining the local and global impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war and the pandemic on agricultural sectors in the Netherlands demonstrates similar effects. Leal Filho et al. (2023) concluded that while the medium-term (2021–2025) impacts of the war that they examined were moderately limited, COVID-19 was also among the main factors leading to an increase in energy and agricultural commodity prices. As described in the one system combinations, the impacts experienced at the focal system level in Ukraine (e.g., food insecurity, diminished health and livelihood) are also seen in adjacent and distant systems affecting the same types of agents (e.g., consumers, farmers, public service workers). This exemplifies the ability of the metacoupling framework to compare similarities and differences between interconnected or parallel systems (e.g., countries). This combination also demonstrates the compounding impacts of both shocks, especially when systems have not had the chance to fully recover from one shock. Ultimately, these interconnected shocks illustrate the need for interdisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration between agents (e.g., government institutions, humanitarian organizations, aid relief groups) involved in international management of crises.

Overall, our shock-system combinations demonstrate how the MCF can help identify similar and different social, economic, and environmental impacts on many systems when the scope is expanded to encompass multiple systems and shocks. They also highlight interconnected relationships and feedback mechanisms that may not be considered at the intracoupled scale.

Many similarities and differences exist at different scales of multiple shocks. Across all combinations, there are significant environmental effects revolving around environmental degradation (e.g., deforestation, habitat destruction, and increased greenhouse gas emissions). While the intracoupling combinations (i.e., one system) focus on localized effects like farmland degradation, wildfires, and water contamination, the peri-and telecoupling combinations (i.e., multiple systems) emphasize broader impacts such as deforestation, unsustainable resource practices and risk of disease transmission from wildlife to humans. These health risks are intertwined with other social effects seen with multiple shocks and systems such as overburdened healthcare and diminished livelihoods. Food insecurity is experienced across all combinations, while unsanitary living conditions and deteriorated healthcare infrastructure occur most predominantly in the intracoupling combinations. Weakened economic development, disrupted supply chains, increased unemployment rates, and changes in consumption patterns are revealed to affect multiple systems under multiple shocks. Overall, examining multiple systems encompasses broader global effects that may generate feedback and exacerbate localized impacts in a focal system, especially given multiple shocks. For a categorized summary of each type of effect by combination, see Table 3.