Carbon neutrality is one of the most important goals for the Chinese government to mitigate climate change. Coal has long been China’s dominant energy source and accounts for more than 70–80% of its carbon emissions. Reducing the share of coal power supply and increasing carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) in coal power plants are the two primary efforts to reduce carbon emissions in China. However, even as energy and water consumed in CCUS are offset by reduced energy consumption from green energy transitions, there may be tradeoffs from the carbon–energy–water (CEW) nexus perspective. This paper developed a metric and tool known as the “Assessment Tool for Portfolios of Coal power production under Carbon neutral goals” (ATPCC) to evaluate the tradeoffs in China’s coal power industry from both the CEW nexus and financial profits perspectives. While most CEW nexus frameworks and practical tools focus on the CEW nexus perturbation from either an external factor or one sector from CEW, ATPCC considers the coupling effect from C(Carbon) and E(Energy) in the CEW nexus when integrating two main carbon mitigation policies. ATPCC also provides an essential systematic life cycle CEW nexus assessment tool for China’s coal power industry under carbon-neutral constraints. By applying ATPCC across different Chinese coal industry development portfolios, we illustrated potential strategies to reach a zero-emission electricity industry fueled by coal. When considering the sustainability of China’s coal industry in the future, we further demonstrate that reduced water and energy consumption results from the energy transition are not enough to offset the extra water and energy consumption in the rapid adoption of CCUS efforts. However, we acknowledge that the increased energy and water consumption is not a direct correlation to CCUS application growth nor a direct negative correlation to carbon emissions. The dual effort to implement CCUS and reduce electricity generation from coal needs a thorough understanding and concise strategy. We found that economic loss resulting from coal reduction can be compensated by the carbon market. Carbon trading has the potential to be the dominant profit-making source for China’s coal power industry. Additionally, the financial profits in China’s coal power industry are not negatively correlated to carbon emissions. Balance between the carbon market and the coal industry would lead to more economic revenues. The scenario with the most rapid reduction in coal power production combined with CCUS would be more sustainable from the CEW nexus perspective. However, when economic revenues are considered, the scenario with a moderately paced energy transition and CCUS effort would be more sustainable. Nevertheless, the ATPCC allows one to customize coal production scenarios according to the desired electricity production and emission reduction, thus making it appropriate not only for use in China but also in other coal-powered regions that face high-energy demands and carbon neutrality goals.

Place-based natural resource management is often shaped by complex interdependent social, ecological, and technological systems, characterized by nonlinear dynamics and evolving interactions. Effective research in such contexts requires local stakeholder engagement, in addition to multidisciplinary collaborations, to incorporate community knowledge and lived experience to identify place-specific characteristics and concerns from multiple perspectives. This study developed a systemic analytical framework that integrates information from diverse sources, including academic research, non-academic reports, and expert narratives, to iteratively define system boundaries, scope, key factors, and their interconnections. A systemic analysis serves as a crucial initial step to help researchers and policymakers define system boundaries, identify key factors, and recognize core issues within their local Social-Ecological-Technological System (SETS). This process supports collaborative research and policy development while minimizing fragmented efforts, redundancy, and the omission of critical system components. The framework employs systems archetypes – a set of recurring patterns in system behavior – as analytical lenses to reveal issues and the feedback dynamics that drive them within place-based systems. We applied this approach to the Santa Fe Watershed in New Mexico, a region facing chronic water scarcity and increasingly relying on cross-sector collaboration for sustainable management. We identify key systemic challenges in the watershed’s water management by clarifying the causal relationships that drive system behavior. Based on identified archetype patterns, we offer targeted policy recommendations to disrupt systemic traps. Our findings suggest that using systems archetypes in conjunction with iterative information synthesis is an effective strategy for integrating multidisciplinary knowledge and engaging stakeholders in guiding convergent, place-based research in natural resource management. The resulting systemic issue structures also serve as foundational building blocks for future conceptual modeling and quantitative simulation efforts in place-based cross-boundary collaborative projects.