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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1563946
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The coupling coordination development among Water Resources Carrying Capacity (WRCC), Urbanization Level (UL), and Economic Development Level (EDL) is a critical indicator for regional socio-economic and ecological sustainability. Although existing studies on WRCC and coupling coordination are abundant, in-depth study on the evolution law of coupling coordination and its influence mechanism are still lacking. This study proposes an innovative integrated model combining the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), coupling coordination degree (CCD) analysis, and nonlinear polynomial regression, to dynamically assess the interplay among WRCC, UL, and EDL in Sichuan Province, China from 2010 to 2019. Key innovations include: First, a hybrid weighting method to balance objectivity and expert knowledge in evaluating WRCC, UL, and EDL, integrating entropy and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Second, a dynamic CCD model capturing multi-system synergies and a nonlinear regression framework quantifying interaction effects. Results show that WRCC exhibited a wavy upward trend, peaking at 0.60 in 2018 and 2019, with spatial characteristics of "strong in the west, weak in the east, and stable in the center." CCD shows a trend of lagging coordination, from basic coordination (0.4-0.5 in 2010-2014) to full coordination (0.6-0.8 in 2018-2019), with 18 cities surpassing 0.6. Regression analysis revealed that CCD is predominantly driven by interactions between systems, R 2 is 0.973, where WRCC-EDL synergy exerted the strongest influence, coefficient is 0.780. This model provides a scientific foundation for optimizing water resource management and fostering sustainable urbanization-economy-resource synergies in ecologically fragile yet rapidly developing regions.
Keywords: Water resources carrying capacity, integrated model, spatial-temporal evolution, Coupling coordination, sustainability, Sichuan province
Received: 20 Jan 2025; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Bee, Wang and He. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hazirah Bee, City University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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