Water-Energy-Food system in typical cities of the world and China under zero-waste: Commonalities and asynchronous experiences support sustainable development

• Published in: Ecological indicators Vol. 132; p. 108221
• Main Authors: Zhang, Pan, Xie, Yulei, Wang, Yongyang, Li, Bowen, Li, Bo, Jia, Qunpo, Yang, Zhifeng, Cai, Yanpeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2021; Elsevier
• Subjects: Commonalities and asynchronous experiences; Entropy method; The Greater Bay Area; Water-energy-food system; Zero-waste city; Commonalities and asynchronous experiences; Zero-waste city; Water-energy-food system; The Greater Bay Area; Entropy method
• ISSN: 1470-160X; 1872-7034
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108221

•A ZWC framework was proposed under water-energy-food system.•Commonalities and asynchronous experiences in world-China are imperative to GBA.•The zero-waste level of China was weaker than the world.•The circular economy can improve the zero-waste level of GBA. Commonalities and asynchronous experiences of realizing zero-waste of water, energy, and food resources between the world and China have critical global importance to support sustainable development, especially for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) urban agglomeration. In this study, a comprehensive assessment framework for the zero-waste city was proposed to evaluate zero-waste construction in the world (e.g., San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo) and China (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, and GBA) from the perspective of water, energy, and food. The results showed that the zero-waste construction level of the GBA cities was weaker than that of the benchmark city and other world-class cities. The average score of the GBA cities was the lowest, 2.5% lower than the benchmark city and 11.8% lower than other world-class cities. Macao had apparent advantages in the social-economic and ecological-environment system, while the Pearl River Delta cities were considerably better than Macao and Hong Kong in the water and food systems. Future work could improve the level of zero-waste construction by learning from foreign zero-waste cities’ advanced experience, increasing efforts to promote the implementation of a circular economy, and building an all-around government sharing mechanism with public participation.