Assessing Water Sustainability and Impacts on Water-Energy-Food Nexus in the Yangtze River Delta

Abstract:

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) is one of the most economically active regions in China. Rapid economic development and urbanization in the YRD lead to increasing demand for water, and growing water pollution and scarcity. Other manifestations such as land subsidence due to groundwater over-extraction in the region further complicates the situation. To assess water sustainability in the YRD, we set up a metric system, which measure sustainability in a variety of aspects, and use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate sustainability performance of cities and other sub-regions in the YRD. The sustainability performance outcomes are further linked to Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus in the region to explore long-term WEF sustainability in the YRD.