The coupling coordination and spatiotemporal evolution of industrial water-energy-CO₂ in the Yellow River Basin

The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is an important energy, chemical, raw material, and basic industrial base in China. With economic growth, water and energy consumption in industrial industries increasing dramatically, huge pressure for CO₂ emission reduction has generated. This paper constructed an industrial water-energy-CO₂ (WEC) evaluation index system, analyzed the comprehensive evaluation level, coupling status and coupling coordination status, by using the comprehensive evaluation method, coupling degree model and coupling coordination degree model and used the spatial autocorrelation analysis to study the spatiotemporal evolution from 1999 to 2019 in the YRB. The results demonstrated that the integrated development level of the basin's industrial WEC system and subsystems had been improving. The basin was at a high coupling and the level of coupling had been increasing as a whole, and the industrial energy-CO₂ coupling degree was bigger than the industrial water-energy and industrial water-CO₂ coupling degrees in the YRB. The coupling coordination status had transitioned from forced coordination to good coordination. Spatially, the coupling coordination didn't appear a significant correlation and showed a random distribution. Accordingly, the suggestions were made to improve the level of industrial development in the basin, strengthen integrated resource management, and enhance intra-basin cooperation.