Coupling coordination analysis of China’s provincial water-energy-food nexus

Water, energy and food are three essential resources for the socio-economic system, and they are interlinked. The coordination of their internal relations is worth studying. We conduct a coordination evaluation method to assess the water-energy-food nexus (WEF Nexus) in China’s provinces. By combining the coupling model and the coupling coordination model, we measure the comprehensive evaluation index and coupling coordination degree of China’s 30 provinces from 2005 to 2017. First, the results show the provincial comprehensive evaluation index had a slow upward trend. The comprehensive evaluation index of the southern region was higher than that of the north, and the eastern was higher than the west. Second, the coordination degree of WEF Nexus in China’s 30 provinces has reached high level in the horizontal coupling stage, and the overall degree of coupling coordination was on the rise. In 2017, the WEF Nexus coupling coordination degree of most provinces reached 0.700 or more, which was intermediate-coordinated. In the six years, the 30 provinces have experienced five types of coupling coordination degree: near coordinated, barely coordinated, primary coordinated, intermediate-coordinated, and well-coordinated.