Meng Fanxin, Wang Dongfang, Liu Gengyuan, Giannetti Biagio F, Agostinho Feni, Almeida Cecília M V B, Yang Zhifeng
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
J Environ Manage. 2023 Nov 1;345:118849. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118849. Epub 2023 Aug 30.
Current energy, water, and land (EWL) nexus research treats all resources equally, causing bias in complicated nexus studies. To make the analysis robust, we consider resource endowment and significance. Here, we provide a methodological framework where the urban industrial resource nexus strength is constructed and assign weights to resources according to policies, describing resource efficiency and representing it in ternary diagrams to assess the urban industrial nexus innovatively. Results showed that energy drives urban development under all weights, with energy resource efficiency exceeding 60%. From consumption-based accounting, energy continues to dominate most industries under physical weightings but emphasizes the significance of water and land. While, under economic weightings, land supplants energy's dominance in specific sectors. Setting weights helps understand resource interaction, establish synergy based on urban development objectives, and minimize robustness. Our findings provide quantitative evidence for assessing urban resource efficiency to highlight priority sectors for intervention in urban decision-making.
