ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1658998
This article is part of the Research TopicTackling the Global Water Crisis: Risks, Challenges, and Sustainable SolutionsView all 8 articles
Water resources ecological footprint in the Yellow River Basin: a two-dimensional decoupling analysis and its change trajectory
Provisionally accepted
- 1Tianjin Academy of Social Science, Tianjin, China
- 2Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, China
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Water resource scarcity is a major obstacle to the sustainable development of the Yellow River Basin (YRB). Accurately identifying the decoupling pathways of water resources ecological footprint (WEF) and economic growth is crucial in resolving the dilemma of water resource utilization and economic development in the YRB. To explore the decoupling states of WEF and the economic growth in cities within the YRB, this study proposed a new two-dimensional decoupling model with 24 different decoupling states, based on the Tapio decoupling model and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. Using the panel data from 60 cities in the YRB from 2010-2021, this study found that the relationship between WEF and per capita GDP followed an N-shape pattern. Decoupling performance shows clear regional differentiation: downstream cities exhibited the best decoupling performance, followed by the midstream cities, while the upstream cities showed the poorest performance. Zibo obtained the highest decoupling score, while Bayannur received the lowest. The change trajectory of decoupling states showed a clear tendency toward desirable decoupling: the proportion of cities achieving high-economic-level decoupling states (HE-SD and HE-WD) increased markedly from 18.33% to 43.33%.The proportion of cities in the HE-SD (High economic level-strong decoupling) and HE-WD (High economic level-weak decoupling) categories increased from 18.33% to 43.33%, indicating a tendency towards the desirable decoupling. However, this transition was highly dynamic and non-linear, nearly 95% of cities experienced changes in their decoupling states during the study period. However, the two-dimensional decoupling state in the YRB was found to be unstable, with almost 95% of cities experiencing changes in their decoupling states. These results highlight the urgency of decoupling water resource utilization from economic growth throughout the YRB. In light of the aforementioned discoveries, this paper proposed corresponding policy recommendations aimed at achieving the ideal decoupling of WEF and economic growth in the Yellow River Basin.
Keywords: Tapio decoupling model, water resources ecological footprint (WEF), Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), Two-dimensional decoupling model, The yellow river basin
Received: 04 Jul 2025; Accepted: 11 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xi, Zhao and Li. 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: Yanling Xi, Tianjin Academy of Social Science, Tianjin, China
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