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China is facing both serious water scarcity and climate change challenges simultaneously. There is an urgent need to identify the synergies between water conservation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation. This paper aims to trace the embodied water uses and GHG emissions (i.e., CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O) via China's domestic supply chains in 2012 and to explore their common important paths for driving the water withdrawals and the emissions of GHGs using the environmentally-extended input-output analysis and the structural path analysis. The results show a significant coupling between the embodied water uses and the embodied emissions of CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O in the supply chains on a national scale. The water-GHG nexus relationships from the consumption-side are systematically revealed in terms of industrial sectors, final demands and supply chain paths. The top 20 nexus paths ranked by water together accounted for 37.40% of the national total water withdrawals. Ranked by GHGs, the proportions were 22.46% of the total GHG emissions. Synergies in saving water resources and mitigating the emissions of CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O can be achieved through controlling important supply chain paths and critical transmission sectors. The highly interlinked nature of water and climate change issues requires comprehensive solutions to reduce future freshwater and GHG emission needs to maintain sustained economic growth in China. Image 1 • We trace embodied water uses and GHG emissions in 2012 Chinese supply chains. • We develop Sankey diagrams to illustrate the water-GHG nexus relationships. • The top 20 paths ranked by water contributed 37.40% of the total water uses. • The top 20 paths ranked by GHG contributed 22.46% of the total GHG emissions. • Critical nexus sectors and paths are potential water and climate policy targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring energy, water and food security is a core challenge as well as an opportunity to national sustainable development. This paper aims to perform an in-depth analysis on demand-driven energy, water and land resource requirements by Chinese economy 2012 and corresponding energy-water-land nexus relationships in its supply chains by using the input-output analysis and the structural path analysis. Results show that Agriculture and Light industry, mainly related to household consumption, are critical aggregated sectors for water and land requirements, in contrast to Heavy industry and Construction , which are related to investment for energy requirements. 15.41% of the total energy requirement, 44.18% of water and 58.64% of land can be attributed to the top 20 supply chain paths. The energy-water-land nexuses are explored by industrial sector, supply chain path and final demand category from the perspective of embodiment. On the final demand side, Agriculture , Light industry , Construction and Service are critical nexus sectors. Major sectoral nexus paths in terms of energy-land, energy-water, water-land, and energy-water-land nexuses are further identified. The energy-water-land nexus in China's supply chains reflect a strong dependence relationship of energy, water and land resource requirements, which then demonstrate essential intervention points of demand-side resource management. • Demand-driven energy, water and land requirements in China 2012 are revealed. • Embodied energy, water and land uses via domestic supply chains are traced. • The energy-water-land nexus are explored from the perspective of embodiment. • Critical sectors and supply chain paths of energy-water-land nexus are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As "the world's factory", China's energy consumption and GHG emissions can be largely attributed to its manufacturing economy. This paper aims to examine energy-related methane (CH 4) and carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions by Chinese economy from a consumption-based perspective, and to explore the energy-climate-manufacturing nexus relationship in its supply chains. Nearly three-quarters of China's energy-related GHG emissions in 2012 were associated with the manufacturing industry directly or indirectly. Among which, over two-fifths of the national CH 4 and CO 2 emissions were embodied in the final demand of manufacturing products, mainly driven by the exports and capital formation. Meanwhile, manufacturing sectors served as important intemediate transmission nodes of embodied emissions for other industries such as construction and services. More than 80% and 40% of the embodied emissions in the sectors of construction and services were related to the intermediate uses of manufacturing products, respectively. Critical supply chain paths for linking embodied GHG emissions with manufacturing sectors were extracted through the structural path analysis technique. The top 30 common paths were responsible for about one fifth of the total CH 4 and CO 2 emissions. Three main transmission nodes of embodied energy-related GHG emission flows were identified. While approximately half of the energy-related CH 4 emissions occurred at the fourth or higher production layers, the CO 2 emissions were distributed evenly across the production layers. Mitigating energy-related GHG emissions associated with manufacturing economy by adjusting critical industrial sectors and final demands provides new insights for understanding the transitions of China's manufacturing industries to a low-carbon economy. Unlabelled Image • 75% of China's energy-related GHG emissions were related to manufacturing sectors. • Over 40% of the emissions were embodied in final demand of manufacturing products. • Energy-climate-manufacturing nexus relationships and structural paths are explored. • The co-control of CH 4 and CO 2 emissions call for actions on entire supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]