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Water, energy and food are the basic resources for human survival and development. The coordination development of water-energy-food (W-E-F) is of great significance to promote regional sustainable development. In this study, Northwest China (Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang) was selected as the research case, and an evaluation index system was constructed to assess the vulnerability and coordination of water-energy-food (W-E-F) system based on PSR model. Then, a coupled model based on cloud-matter element model and coordination degree model was proposed. The cloud-matter element model was adopted to evaluate the vulnerability level of W-E-F system. The coordination degree model was employed to calculate the coordination degrees of W-E-F system. The results showed that, from 2006 to 2015, the vulnerability levels of W-E-F system in Northwest China were mostly at Level 1. The coordination degrees of W-E-F system belonged to the transitional development level (II) in most years. The vulnerability and coordination problems of W-E-F system in Northwest China were severe. The comprehensive vulnerability index values of W-E-F system were generally on the rise, but far from reaching a good level. Moreover, the comprehensive vulnerability index values and coordination degrees of W-E-F system in Northwest China do not match well. Finally, the countermeasures and suggestions to improve the coordinated development of water resource, energy and food in Northwest China were put forward.2 of 25 scholars and relevant departments. Research on W-E-F system has become an important topic in the field of sustainable development [4].Vulnerability, as an important research object, has been put on the research agenda by international scientific programs and institutions such as IHDP, IPCC, IGBP [5][6][7]. It has become the frontier and hotspot of global environmental change and sustainable scientific research. In 1999, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) formally put forward the concept of "economic vulnerability" [8]. After that, the research object of vulnerability has gradually expanded from the natural ecological environment system to the complex system which includes the natural, social, economic and institutional factors. Cutter [9] summarized the related concepts of vulnerability, pointing out that social vulnerability is a natural risk and social response within a specific region or geographical scope, and stressing the imbalance of social preparedness, response, recovery and adaptation to disasters. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) defined vulnerability as the extent to which the attributes of communities, systems or property and the environment are damaged by disaster-causing factors. It was considered that vulnerability was related to various natural, social, economic and environmental factors, and has certain temporal and spatial attributes [10]. Chen et al. [11] indicated that social vulnerability influenced people's ability to make full pre-disaster preparatio...

Seawater intrusion has occurred in the coastal area of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea as early as the 1970s, and the situation is worsening, with rapid socioeconomic development in recent years. Substantial amounts of groundwater have been exploited to support socioeconomic activities, especially agricultural activities, causing a reduction in the groundwater level, and hence the intrusion of seawater. This issue seriously restricts the sustainable socioeconomic development of these coastal areas. To this end, this paper applied the improved Tapio decoupling theory to analyze the degree of decoupling, and the spatial difference between the economic growth and the groundwater consumption of the five provinces and cities in the coastal areas of the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea in the period of 2003-2016. Based on the improved STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) model and panel data, we determined the driving factors of groundwater consumption in the coastal areas of the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea. The results demonstrated that the effective irrigation area of farmland should be expanded, new water-saving technology should be introduced, the crop planting structure should be readjusted, and the consumption of groundwater should be reduced. By implementing these measures, it would be possible to contain seawater intrusion in the coastal areas of the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea.Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea elevated the challenges of groundwater ecological environment protection. Overexploitation of groundwater in the process of socioeconomic activities (especially agricultural activities) is depleting groundwater resources, causing seawater intrusion and adversely affecting the groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Therefore, understanding the decoupling relationship between economic growth and groundwater consumption would offer an important theoretical basis for adopting groundwater management and protection measures, in order to prevent further expansion of seawater intrusion and to achieve sustainable economic development.The term "Decoupling" originally refers to the different trends of change between two physical quantities in physics. Later, similar terminology was applied in the economic field [8]. The idea was to indicate that while the economy is growing, the availability of a specific resource is depleting, i.e., breaking the link between environmental load and economic performance. Based on the driving force-environmental pressure-environmental state conditions, OECD(Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have established a systematic set of indicators to divide the state between economic development and resource consumption into relative decoupling and absolute decoupling relationships [9,10]. Based on the OECD decoupling model, Tapio [11] and colleagues developed the Tapio decoupling model which classifies decoupling into eight categories: strong decoupling, expansion relative decoupling, recessionary decoupling, strong negative decoupling, weak...