Analysis of coupling coordination between social economy and water environment quality in river basin

An indicator system for coupling coordination assessment was constructed based on indices from three aspects: economic development, social development and environmental protection, with weights determined by applying a mechanical balance model based on the information entropy theory. We applied our indicator system to evaluate coupling coordination degree of the Min River basin over the period from 2006 to 2016. The results showed that: the level of economic development, social development and environmental protection in Sanming, Nanping and Fuzhou regions all have increased during this period. Spatially, Fuzhou achieved the greatest improvement, followed by Sanming, then Nanping. The same increasing trend has been found on the coupling coordination degree at all three regions. Spatially, the degree of improvement achieved in each region followed the order of Fuzhou, Sanming, and Nanping. According to the status of the coupling coordination, we divided the research period into three stages: stage I (2006~2009), stage II (2009~2013) and stage III (2013~2016). Within each stage, we categorized the regional coupling coordination into three groups based on the deviation direction θ of the coupling coordination degree in each area of the Min River basin: lagging in environmental protection type (I quadrant), lagging in economic development type (II quadrant) and lagging in social development type (III quadrant), and we also discussed the improvement suggestions for each type in this article. © 2019, Editorial Board of China Environmental Science. All right reserved.