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With the intensification of people’s production and life behaviors, the systemic risks of water, energy and food in the Yangtze River Basin have become increasingly prominent, which has become a bottleneck for sustainable development of social, economic and ecological in the basin. Therefore, studying the symbiotic coordination between water, energy and food is of great significance to promoting regional sustainable development. First, from the perspective of water–energy–food symbiosis, with the water–energy–food ecosystem conceptual model as the nexus, the two-step measurement model of the symbiotic index and the symbiotic level index is used to study the water–energy–food symbiosis of the Yangtze River. Then, we use the BP-DEMATEL-GTCW model to identify the key influencing factors that affect the symbiotic security of the water–energy–food ecosystem. In this research, it is found that the average value of the symbiotic degree of the water–energy–food ecosystem of the 11 provinces or municipalities in the Yangtze River Basin only reached the risk grade. It can also be seen from the identification results of key influencing factors that energy microsystem-related indicators have a greater impact on the symbiotic development of the entire WEF ecosystem. Therefore, special attention needs to be paid to increasing energy sources and reducing expenditure. Relevant departments need to effectively develop primary energy production and expand energy-saving investment through multiple channels to expand energy self-sufficiency and ultimately promote the coordinated and effective development of water, energy and food in the Yangtze River Basin. Full article

Water, energy, and food are essential resources for humanity. The growing shortages of these resources and serious deterioration of river environments are having a big impact on the sustainable development of the economy and society in China. Water, energy, and food support human life and yet coexist in different ways, and therefore it is critical to find a way for all three key elements to be secured in order to support high standards of sustainable development in China. We used the criteria of stability, coordination, and sustainability of symbiotic systems to select 33 indexes that were then used to establish an index system. The weight of index was determined by using the entropy weight method combined with Analytic Hierarchy Process. The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was used to calculate the collaborative security index, which was the basis of our evaluation of the collaborative water–energy–food security of China in time and space. The results show that North China and Northwest China are at high water–food–energy security risk, while East, Central, and South China are at moderate risk. With the exception of Southwest China and South China, risk in most parts of the country has risen over the past decades, while it has fallen in Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. Full article

The interactions of water, energy, and food, which are essential resources for human survival, livelihoods, production, and development, constitute a water–energy–food (WEF) nexus. Applying symbiosis theory, the economic, social, and natural factors were considered at the same time in the WEF system, and we conducted a micro-level investigation focusing on the stability, coordination, and sustainability of the symbiotic units (water, energy, and food), and external environment of the WEF system in 36 prefecture-level cities across three northeastern provinces of China. Finally, we analyzed the synergistic safety and coupling coordination degree of the WEF system by the combination of stability, coordination, and sustainability, attending to the coordination relationship and influences of the external environment. The results indicated that the synergistic safety of the WEF system in three northeastern provinces need to equally pay attention to the stability, coordination, and sustainability of the WEF system, since their weights were 0.32, 0.36 and 0.32, respectively. During 2010–2016, the synergistic safety indexes of the WEF system ranged between 0.40 and 0.60, which was a state of boundary safety. In the current study, the coupling coordination degree of the WEF system fluctuated around a value of 0.6, maintaining a primary coordination level; while in the future of 2021–2026, it will decline to 0.57–0.60, dropping to a weak coordinated level. The conclusion could provide effective information for decision-makers to take suitable measures for the security development of a WEF system. Full article