A study on energy-water-food-carbon nexus in typical Chinese northern rural households

The energy-water-food-carbon nexus of rural households requires different strategies from those of urban households. This study proposes a nexus framework and a quantitative method to analyze the energy, water, food, and carbon of typical northern rural households in China. A system dynamic model of the rural household energy-water-food-carbon nexus was developed. Three scenarios were designed, namely appliance, behavior, and price, with 42 sub scenarios in total to explore the medium to long-term dynamic changes in energy-water-food-carbon in rural households under different scenarios. The results of the appliance scenario show that there is a strong water-gas and food-gas nexus effect in northern rural households. Compared with the BAU scenario, reducing the consumption of meat and dairy by 5% can save 11.89% of gas and reduce 5.64% of carbon. Moreover, the policy simulation results indicate that a policy will affect not only its target subsystem, but also other subsystems, creating a policy nexus. The behavior adjustment scenarios have a strong nexus effect on water and energy, and resource price adjustment scenarios have a good effect on water and food consumption. Therefore, when making policies at the household level, policy makers need to look at each subsystem comprehensively, use the synergistic effect of policies skillfully and avoid the antagonistic effect of policies, in order to optimize the positive effect of policies.