| Water,energy,and food（WEF）are fundamental and essential resources for human survival and social development.Food security,freshwater shortage,and fossil energy exhaustion are widespread challenges and attract increasing attention from governments and academia.According to the National Intelligence Council（NIC）report in 2012,global demand for water,energy,and food in 2030 will grow by approximately 40,50,and 35 percent.The imbalance between the limited supply capacity and increasing demand posed significant challenges to local decision-makers and government managers when dealing with WEFrelated issues.The Bonn conference introduced the WEF nexus as a conceptual framework to investigate mutual dependency linkages and trade-offs to meet this challenge.Various WEF nexus-related research found that the WEF system had complex nexus characteristics.Energy production and supply are water-intensive（e.g.,coal mining and power generation）.The extraction and distribution of water are associated with massive energy consumption.Food cultivation and storage also require extensive water and energy.Such a complex linkage would correspondingly increase the difficulty of WEF resources supply and demand management.How to effectively solve the imbalance between the supply and demand of WEF resources and comply with socio-economic development requirements is crucial for sustainable urban development.Given the above problems,this study constructed a theoretical and technical framework for synergic management of the WEF system in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao.We mainly focus on four aspects: recognizing the current situation,revealing the system characteristics,clarifying the risk mechanism,and establishing the synergic management scheme.The results are as follows:First,this study proposed a multi-indicator assessment framework focusing on the gap between the Greater Bay Area and world-class cities.The results showed that the level of the Greater Bay Area cities was weaker than that of world-class cities.Macao had apparent advantages in the social-economic and ecological-environment systems,while the Pearl River Delta cities were considerably better than Macao and Hong Kong in the water and food systems.Future work could learn from advanced foreign experience,increasing efforts to promote a circular economy,and building an all-around government sharing mechanism with public participation.Second,this study proposed a footprint accounting framework for the WEF based on the environmentally extended multi-regional input-output and ecological network analysis models.It can reveal the characteristics of WEF resource consumption in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao.The results indicated that physical energy was dominant in the energy system,and physical water was dominant in the water system.Inter-regional trade played an important role in managing the three regions’ WEF resources.Hong Kong and Macao outsourced huge water,energy,and food footprints by importing freshwater,electricity,and food from Guangdong to satisfy local demand.The wholeness WEF trade network stayed in a positive environment,but the positive effect level was relatively weak.The government should attach great importance to the critical role of cross-regional synergic management and promote the development of high-technology industries such as seawater toilets-flushing,sea rice,and renewable energy in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao.Third,a systematic framework was proposed to investigate the generation,coupling,transmission,and evaluation of WEF scarcity risk.The risk was quantified,described,and assessed to help understand regional vulnerability to WEF scarcity.It aims to reveal the characteristics of WEF scarcity risk under multiple dimensions,levels,and scales and the associated coupling and transmission mechanisms.By comparing the multi-dimensional risk of WEF in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao,the results indicated that local industrial structures dominated potential economic losses caused by WEF scarcity risk.The nexus risk of three sub-systems was a critical factor restricting regional economic development.Resources-scarce regions/sectors transferred WEF scarcity risk to certain neighboring partners through network trade to ensure local demands.Especially in highly resource-dependency regions（e.g.,Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao region）,Hong Kong and Macao would transfer much of the local WEF scarcity risk to Guangdong province,which made potential economic losses in Guangdong more significant than local ones.Instead of thinking of Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao as competitors,the financial loss could be reduced if the three regions work in a coordinating pattern.Such cooperation has implications for optimizing the industrial structure and sustainable development goals for clean water,affordable energy,and food security.Last,this study constructed a synergic management model of the multi-dimensional risk of WEF in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao.Four models were established on key risk factors in Guangdong,Hong Kong,Macao,and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao.This paper explores the possible path for the healthy and stable development of WEF systems in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao through scenarios.By comparing the base,optimization,and deep optimization scenarios,we find that the economic loss caused by WEF scarcity risks can be effectively reduced by controlling the WEF deprivation risk and dependence and optimizing the industrial structure.The local government should take measures to avoid excessive consumption of WEF resources,such as vigorously promoting conservation awareness,tax subsidies,and infrastructure construction.In addition,the government should focus on developing the tertiary industry in Guangdong and Hong Kong.By reducing the proportion of the tertiary industry,the multi-dimensional risk of WEF can be effectively transferred to achieve an effective transformation of internal contradictions.These measures have important theoretical significance for the stable WEF systems and socio-economic development in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao.The innovation of this study is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:（1）The study of a single region and system cannot solve the problem from multiple areas and systems.This study focuses on analyzing the consumption characteristics of the WEF nexus system in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao;（2）Previous studies focused on quantifying and identifying a single risk.From the perspective of WEF scarcity risk under multiple dimensions,levels,and scales,this study focused on the generation,coupling,transmission,and evaluation of WEF scarcity risk to reveal the risk characteristics and critical risk factors;（3）This study constructed a multi-regional synergic management model of the multi-dimensional risk of WEF in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao.It can provide decision support for resolving multi-regional resource allocation and imbalance of supply and demand.The significance of this study is to construct a complete theoretical framework for the synergic management of the multi-dimensional risk of WEF.It can improve the research theory of the multi-regional WEF nexus system and provide crucial theoretical support for the systematic scientific synergic management of WEF resources in China.In addition,this study carries out empirical research on the imbalance between the supply and demand of WEF resources in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao.It can provide guidance and reference for solving these practical problems for other regions in the world.In general,this study can give constructive suggestions for decision-makers to formulate the development strategy of the WEF nexus system and has important practical guiding significance for optimizing the spatial layout of WEF resources. |
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