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Agricultural water use efficiency and land-use intensity dominate the water-food-ecology nexus coupling coordination in the Lake Victoria Basin

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Abstract

Water, food, and ecology are closely interconnected and are essential for regional development and human well-being, forming the water-food-ecology (WFE) nexus. However, knowledge about progress towards sustainable development of the WFE nexus at the basin scale remains largely unavailable. This study constructed an evaluation system to assess the WFE nexus in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The spatio-temporal dynamics of WFE nexus coupling coordination were revealed using coupling coordination degree (CCD) model and spatial autocorrelation analysis. Then, the random forest algorithm was employed to identify key factors dominating the evolutionary patterns of CCD. The results showed that the water subsystem index decreased 4.55%, accompanied by growing spatial imbalance. In contrast, the food and ecology subsystem indices increased 45.45% and 33.33%, respectively, with reduced spatial imbalance. Besides, the mean coupling coordination level of WFE nexus improved from intermediate discoordination (CCD = 0.36) to basic coordination (CCD = 0.405), while the proportion of area reaching coordination increased from 36.34% to 51.66%. A cluster of high coupling coordination was maintained in the relatively more developed northeastern sub-basins of the LVB. In addition, social influencing factors dominated CCD across the basin, with agricultural water use efficiency and land-use intensity consistently ranking higher in importance than climate and vegetation variables, highlighting the closer association between human activities and WFE nexus coupling coordination. This study provided a feasible evaluation framework and improved understanding of the WFE nexus in great lake basins.

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Data availability

The datasets generated or analyzed during the current study are derived from publicly available sources, which are fully described in the “Methods” section. Processed data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

The R code will be available on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42361144888).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Urban Habitat Environmental Science and Technology, School of Urban Planning and Design, Peking University, Shenzhen, China

    Tengwen Wang, Danfei Zhong & Jiansheng Wu

  2. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Jiayao Shu, Yifan Lin & Jian Peng

  3. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Maurice Mugabowindekwe

  4. Centre for Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing, College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda

    Maurice Mugabowindekwe

  5. Department of Spatial Planning, School of Architecture and Built Environment, College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda

    Gaspard Rwanyiziri

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  3. Maurice Mugabowindekwe
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Contributions

Conceptualization and methodology: T.W. and J.P.; analysis and investigation: T.W., J.S., M.M., and Y.L.; writing-original draft preparation: T.W., J.S., M.M., Y.L., D.Z., and J.P.; writing-reviewing and editing: M.M., J.W., G.R., and J.P.

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Jian Peng.

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Wang, T., Shu, J., Mugabowindekwe, M. et al. Agricultural water use efficiency and land-use intensity dominate the water-food-ecology nexus coupling coordination in the Lake Victoria Basin.
npj Clean Water (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41545-026-00563-w

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