Decoupling trend and drivers between grain water‑carbon footprint and economy-ecology development in China

Agriculture is not only the basic guarantee for human survival, but also the basis for the economy development and ecology construction. Water use and carbon emissions in grain production will largely determine China's transition to "green". On the basis of finding out how much water is consumed and how much carbon is emitted by grain cultivation, and then finding out whether and what extent water use and carbon emissions affect economic-ecological development in China. This study uses the Tapio decoupling model to calculate the decoupling status of the grain water‑carbon footprint and economic-ecological development in mainland China from 1998 to 2020. Then the Logarithmic Mean Division Index (LMDI) model is used to analyze the drivers of the change of water-economy decoupling status. The results show that the grain water‑carbon footprint is well decoupled from economic development, most decoupling states are absolute decoupling (−3