The dependence of economic development on the metal resource is one of the challenges for developing countries. Given the enormous pressure of resource shortage in China, exploring the flow of metals between sectors is critical to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Based on the Chinese environmentally extended input-output (CEEIO) database from 1997 to 2017, the structural decomposition analysis (SDA) and the structural path analysis (SPA) models were combined to analyze the main driving factors and key paths of metal consumption in China. The results show that from 1997 to 2017, China...