| In the context of human activities driving global change,global environmental problems such as climate change,resource depletion,and environmental pollution have emerged and become increasingly prominent.How to promote socio-economic development under the constraints of limited resources and environment is a realistic problem that needs to be solved urgently for sustainable development.In 2013,China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)in response to the growing sustainability challenges raised by globalization.The BRI is an unprecedented development strategy aims to encourage inclusive globalization,promote economic prosperity and peaceful development in countries along the BRI.Until today the BRI has gradually become the most popular and promising international public goods,providing a new scheme for regional and global sustainable development.Given the significant variation of socio-economic development level,natural resource endowment and eco-environment status among BRI countries,it’s worth noting that countries along the BRI are experiencing rapid socio-economic growth with a series of environmental problems such as climate change,resource shortage,environmental pollution,etc.At the same time,the increasingly frequent trade in goods and services has not only promoted the economic growth of BRI countries,but also accelerated the cross-border transfer of resources and environmental risks of BRI countries,bringing new challenges to the environmental sustainability of BRI.Therefore,it makes great sense to reveal the spatiotemporal patterns,future trends and optimizing pathways of environmental sustainability in the BRI,so as to promote the coordinated development of society,economy and environment in the BRI.First,this paper employs a multi-regional input-output(MRIO)model to evaluate the water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints of BRI countries and traces the flows embodied in international trade from both regional and global perspectives.Then,based on the structure decomposition analysis(SDA),the driving forces behind the variation of environmental footprint are identified.Furthermore,this paper assesses the environmental sustainability of all the BRI countries by comparing water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints with the corresponding environmental boundaries.Besides,by linking the MRIO model with the multiobjective optimization(MOO)model,this paper projects the future trends in in environmental footprints under the shared socioeconomic pathways(SSPs)and investigates whether BRI countries can realize social,economic and environmental sustainability by 2030 through adjusting their industrial structure at the sectoral level.By doing so,this paper puts forward integrated strategies to promote the sustainable development of BRI.The main conclusions of the paper are as follows:(1)Overall,the water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints of BRI experiences an increasing trend but varies greatly among the BRI countries.High-value of footprints are concentrated in China,India,Russia,while the footprint values of Belarus,Montenegro and Qatar are relatively low.Generally,the BRI’s environmental footprints present a spatial distribution of“high in the southeast BRI but low in the northwest BRI”.From the perspective of industrial structure,the highest footprint of water,land,nitrogen and phosphorus are found in the primary industry,followed by the secondary and tertiary industry,while the secondary industry’s carbon footprint is the highest,followed by the tertiary and primary industry.From the perspective of industrial sectors,the “Agriculture” sector has the highest water,land,nitrogen and phosphorus footprint,while the “Construction” sector is observed with the highest carbon footprint.(2)The BRI acts as an exporter of virtual water and land as well as embodied carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus worldwide at the global scale.On the BRI scale,about half of the BRI countries are net exporters of virtual water and land as well as embodied carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus.Looking deeper into the flow directions,this paper finds that North America,Europe,Southeast Asia countries with relatively developed economies and large demand for resources tend to import large amounts virtual water and land as well as embodied carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus from less-developed but resources-rich countries in East Asia,South Asia and Southeast Asia.And several countries changed their role between the BRI and global scales,either from a net exporter to a net importer,or the opposite.For example,India imports virtual water and embodied carbon from BRI countries while exporting it to the countries outside BRI.This implies that the countries who have changed their roles play an important role in the global and BRI’s trade.Therefore,the radiation role of these countries in global and BRI’s trade should be fully utilized.By doing so,a mutually beneficial trade cooperation could be formed and the cross-border transfer of environmental risks could be reduced,too.(3)The economic development and population are found to substantially drive the growth of the BRI’s water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints.And the positive impact of economic development on water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints increases over time.Whereas the positive impact of population on water,land and carbon footprints gradually strengthens,the positive impact on nitrogen and phosphorus footprint is weakened.In addition,the final demand structure and industrial structure are the other two drivers of BRI’s carbon footprint.As opposed to technology level,final demand structure and industrial structure,all of which inhibit BRI’s water,land,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints.For most BRI countries,the growth of economy and population contribute to the increase of water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints,and the change of industrial structure is the major driving factor for the increase of carbon footprint.Conversely,the technical level and final demand structure acts as constraints on water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints,while industrial structure leads to water,land,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints decrease considerably.(4)The BRI’s carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus footprints has exceeded their corresponding environmental boundaries,while water and land footprints are within their corresponding environmental boundaries.From the perspective of spatial pattern,the water sustainability show an incline trend from northeast to southwest BRI,as opposite by the land sustainability.And a spatial distribution pattern of “high in mid latitude and low in high and low latitude” is witnessed by carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus sustainability.From the perspective of spatial agglomeration characteristics,the water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus sustainability have significant positive spatial correlation,and the spatial positive correlation of land,nitrogen and phosphorus sustainability among countries gradually strengthened from 1995 to 2015,while the water and carbon sustainability among countries are weakened.(5)Under SSP1～SSP5,the BRI’s water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus sustainability is expected to improve compared with that in 2015,and the water,land and nitrogen are all sustainable by 2030.By further comparing the future trend of environmental sustainability under the premise of employment increase and economic progress under all the SSP scenarios,the results show that the SSP1 characterized by low mitigation and low adaptation challenges is a better pathway for BRI to realize environmental sustainability.Under this pathway,while achieving 2.31% and 10.81% economic growth and employment rates,respectively,the sustainability of water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus has improved significantly compared with that in 2015,and the water,land and nitrogen are all in a sustainable state.Meanwhile,the number of countries along the BRI that achieve water,land,carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus sustainability is also the largest in SSP1.Finally,this paper further classifies BRI countries into three categories according to the optimal scale of industrial development of different BRI countries,and proposes corresponding management of “classified governance” for optimizing social,economic and environmental sustainability in BRI. |
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