The Spatial and Temporal Assessment of the Water–Land Nexus in a Changing Environment: The Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin (China)

In addition to agriculture, the water–land nexus (WLN) also profoundly affects the sustainable development of industry and residents’ lives. However, little research has been designed to assess the water–land nexus from the perspective of industry development and people’s quality of life. In the current paper, Wi, a regional industrial water–land nexus matching index, and Wd, a matching index of the domestic water–land nexus, were proposed for evaluating the water–land nexus from the industry development and quality of life perspectives separately in the current paper. Furthermore, climate change and human activities have significant impacts on the water–land nexus. The WLNs were assessed spatially and temporally for the first time based on these two indexes in 128 municipalities in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin of China from 1951 to 2017 to analyze the impacts of the changing environment on them. The impact of changing environment was explored based on changes of some climate factors and land use. The value of Wi are higher in the eastern and southern cities than the western and northern cities, while Zhenjiang city in Jiangsu Province has the highest Wi. For Wd, there are two low Wd zones across the basin, while the minimum values occurred in Linxia Hui Autonomous Region (Wd = 35.34 mm). Wi and Wd in most cities in the basin showed a significant downward trend, and some cities in the southwest of the basin have the fastest-decreasing of Wd. Wt and Wa were also calculated to assess the total and agricultural water–land nexus separately based on existing research. The Wt for the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin gradually increases from northwest to southeast, and its spatial distribution characteristics are similar to precipitation in the river basin. In addition, the government should simultaneously implement water transfer plans to reduce the agricultural water pressure in Ningxia and Gansu provinces. Dynamic driving factors of change of the four assessment indexes (Wt, Wa, Wi, Wd) are briefly analyzed in the end of the paper.