Evaluation and prediction of water-energy-carbon nexus efficiency in China based on a new multiregional input-output perspective.

Water, energy and carbon are three basic environmental factors that affect countries. An in-depth study of the water-energy-carbon (WEC) nexus is of great significance for realizing regional sustainable development. However, at present, research on the evaluation and prediction of large-scale WEC nexus based on multiple perspectives is not sufficiently mature, especially the prediction of WEC nexus efficiency. This study evaluates and predicts the WEC nexus efficiency in 30 regions of China based on a new comprehensive perspective. The WEC efficiency and the slack variables of 30 regions from 2006 to 2020 were calculated by using the slack-based measure model. The 30 regions were divided into 4 efficiency groups using hierarchical cluster analysis. Efficiency trends in 2006-2020 were analyzed for specific regions. The coupling interaction between the WEC nexus is studied based on the perspective of the coupling degree and coupling coordination degree. More importantly, this study is the first to quantitatively predict the WEC efficiency of 30 regions in China from 2021 to 2030, using the rank set pair analysis model. The following results were obtained in this paper. The WEC efficiency has a slow decreasing trend in 2006-2020. A total of 16.7% and 33.3% of the regions are in the extreme and high coupling coordination stages, respectively, and are mainly concentrated in the northern and southeastern parts of China. Fifty percent of the regions have moderate coupling coordination, mainly concentrated in the central and southern regions. From 2021 to 2030, the WEC efficiency of Beijing, Tianjin and Qinghai will remain at a high level; the WEC efficiency of Shandong and other regions will remain at a low level; and 70% of the regions' water efficiency will remain low. This paper has important guiding significance for promoting the regional WEC nexus balance and sustainable development of the economy, society and environment. According to the characteristics of the four efficiency groups, some valuable suggestions on regional sustainable development are proposed.

Robust Fault Estimation Design for Discrete-Time Nonlinear Systems via A Modified Fuzzy Fault Estimation Observer.

The paper provides relaxed designs of fault estimation observer for nonlinear dynamical plants in the Takagi-Sugeno form. Compared with previous theoretical achievements, a modified version of fuzzy fault estimation observer is implemented with the aid of the so-called maximum-priority-based switching law. Given each activated switching status, the appropriate group of designed matrices can be provided so as to explore certain key properties of the considered plants by means of introducing a set of matrix-valued variables. Owing to the reason that more abundant information of the considered plants can be updated in due course and effectively exploited for each time instant, the conservatism of the obtained result is less than previous theoretical achievements and thus the main defect of those existing methods can be overcome to some extent in practice. Finally, comparative simulation studies on the classical nonlinear truck-trailer model are given to certify the benefits of the theoretic achievement which is obtained in our study.