The relationship between coordination degree of the water–energy–food system and regional economic development

Abstract

The sustainable development of the water–energy–food (WEF) system has gained global attention as a result of limited land resources, inadequate energy supply and growing water stress. Coordination degree is an important indicator to measure the sustainable development of the WEF system. Improving the coordination degree contributes to the sustainable development of the WEF system and affects regional economic development. The extended Cobb–Douglas function is applied to examine the relationship between coordination degree of the WEF system and regional economic development in 31 provinces of China during the period of 2007–2018. By using the system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation, empirical results indicate that in the regions with low coordination degree, improved coordination degree of the WEF system will hinder regional economic growth. In the regions with high coordination degree, it will promote regional economic growth. The results indicate that there is a lag period for the influence of improved coordination degree on regional economic growth. When making resources management policies, shortening the lag period is conducive to achieving sustainable development and promoting regional economic development. Governments of various regions should formulate different resource management policies based on the conditions of each region and the different relationships between coordination degree of the WEF system and regional economic development.