Abstract
Water resources, social economy, and ecological environment are interrelated and interacting complex systems, and the relationship among them affects the sustainable development of the region. To explore the interactive relationship and driving factors between water resources, social economy, and ecological environment in the Yellow River Golden Triangle region, taking the Yellow River Golden Triangle region as the research object in this paper. By constructing a coupling coordination evaluation index system of water resources, social economy, and ecological environment system, the coupling coordination development of this region from 2011 to 2021 is studied using the coupling coordination degree model, and the influencing factors of coupling coordination development are identified by grey relational analysis. The results show that from 2011 to 2021, the comprehensive evaluation index of water resources, social economy, and ecological environment in the Yellow River Golden Triangle region shows a trend of steady development followed by a gradual increase. The water resources subsystem restricts the development of the coupling system. The coupling coordination degree increased from a barely coordinated stage in 2011 to a well-coordinated stage in 2021. The coupling and coordinated development of Yuncheng and Linfen cities is better than that of Sanmenxia and Weinan cities. The social economy subsystem and water resources subsystem are the main factors affecting the coordinated development of the coupling system.