面向可持续发展的资源关联研究:现状与展望

Resource nexus for sustainable development:Status quo and prospect

中国传统文化认为“金、木、水、火、土”五行相生相克,这是最早描述物质要素之间相互关联的系统性学说.在现代科学语境中,支撑和制约可持续发展的关键自然资源主要包括矿产资源、生物质资源、水资源、能源和土地资源,大致与“五行”对应.它们之间存在广泛的依赖、替代、竞争和互补关系.近10年来,全球兴起了“资源关联”(resources nexus)的研究热潮.本文对资源关联研究进行了文献计量分析,综述了常用研究方法、模型和数据,分析了资源关联的驱动力、影响因素及其对社会经济可持续发展的作用.主要发现如下:(1)日益紧密的资源关联关系对可持续发展的影响不断增强;(2)全球化驱使资源关联由区域性向全球性开放系统延伸;(3)资源关联使可持续发展目标之间既存在协同也存在冲突;(4)资源关联对社会经济可持续发展转型既有促进也有制约作用.未来可以在四方面深化该领域的研究:(1)拓展资源关联的研究范畴;(2)揭示资源关联的内在机制及其影响;(3)构建通用、开放、共享、可拓展的数据平台;(4)加强资源关联研究的可持续发展决策支撑能力.

Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)proposed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in 2015 are a roadmap for action to promote coordinated development of economy,society,and the environment.Natural resources,including energy,water,biomass,minerals,and land,are key elements for the achievement of SDGs.Various dependence,substitution,competition,and complementation relationships exist among different kinds of natural resources.The idea of intrinsic interconnectivities of the world’s material basis,which states that the five basic elements of“gold,wood,water,fire,and earth”mutually enable and restrict one other,can be traced back to Wuxing theory in ancient Chinese culture.The research interest in understanding and managing such interconnections has inspired a large number of studies on“resource nexus”and its role in facilitating SDGs in the past decade.Bibliometric analysis showed that the number of publications on resource nexus increased rapidly after the Bonn 2011 Nexus Conference.Nexuses between water and other resources,especially energy,are commonly investigated issues.Transdisciplinary approaches have become an important research direction in recent years.Studies on resource nexus have been incorporated into SDG discussions after 2015.Methods and models used in resource nexus studies are generally classified into three categories,namely,accounting,simulation,and optimization.These widely used methods in the system analysis of single-resource elements have been extended to cover and focus on linkages among resources.A number of integrated decision support tools,such as CLEW,WEF Nexus Tool,WEAP-LEAP,and WEF Nexus Rapid Appraisal Tool,have also been developed for problem identification,scenario analysis,and policy design.Many research institutes and international organizations have compiled databases on resource extraction,production,consumption,and trade to facilitate academic studies and decision making.Effects of resource nexus on sustainable development can be summarized as follows:(1)Strengthened impacts of increasingly interconnected resource nexus on sustainable development,(2)global expansion of localized resource nexus,(3)resource nexus leads to both synergies and conflicts among SDGs,and(4)resource nexus has both promoting and restricting effects on sustainable socioeconomic transitions.Finally,future investigations can focus on the following directions:(1)Expand the research scope of resource nexus;(2)reveal mechanisms and influences of resource nexus;(3)build universal,open-source,and extendible data platforms;and(4)strengthen the decision support capability of resource nexus studies.