Abstract: Study on the environmental-economic metabolism of rural households in ecologically fragile areas is of great significance for rural precise governance and regional sustainable development. Northwest Liaoning Province is a typical ecologically fragile area and an important ecological security barrier in northern China. Improving the ecological environment quality and enhancing the livelihood of farmers and herders are crucial for revitalizing rural areas in Northeast China. We chose seven townships in the northern part of Zhangwu County, which is seriously affected by wind erosion in the Northwest Liaoning Province, as the study area. Using methods such as questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews, and based on a framework of family-scale environmental and economic metabolism, we investigated the environmental and economic metabolism activities of typical farmer households in the region, characterized by carbon emissions and water resource consumption. The results showed that in the northern region of Northwest Liaoning, the average household water consumption and use intensity were 14105 m³ and 0.14 m³·yuan^-1, respectively. The average household carbon emissions and carbon intensity were 36.72 t CO₂·a^-1 and 0.31 kg CO₂·yuan^-1, respectively, with the per capita carbon emissions reaching 9.90 t CO₂·a^-1. There were great differences in water consumption, carbon emissions, and their respective intensities across households dominated by planting, breeding, and combined planting and breeding. The planting-dominated households exhibited the highest water consumption and intensity. The breeding-dominated households showed the highest carbon emissions. The planting-breeding combined households displayed the highest carbon emission intensity. However, the environmental-economic metabolic characteristics of the three types of households showed “high water consumption and high carbon emission”. The differing livelihood strategies were the primary reasons for the difference of environmental economic metabolism level. Notably, the breeding-dominated households demonstrated relatively higher environmental-economic metabolism efficiency per unit of income. In the future, more  feasible strategies should focus on accelerating the transition of rural areas into low-carbon, green and circular sustainable development models to achieve rural revitalization.

Key words: environmental-economic metabolism, carbon emission, water intensity, rural household, material flow analysis