The coupling and coordination relationship between ecology and the economy in the Yellow River Basin is a hot topic in sustainable development research. Said research has important guiding significance for the ecological security and comprehensive development of the Yellow River Basin. Taking the Yellow River Basin as the object of our study, based on the data of the economy, energy consumption data, ecology data and water resources data, we construct an indicator system of the economic development and ecological status of the Yellow River Basin and use the principal component analysis method to calculate the economic development and ecological status index. Then, we use the evaluation method, the coupling degree model and the coupling coordination degree model to analyze the time and space evolution trends of economic development and ecological state, coupling degree and coupling coordination degree. The results show that: (1) From 2000 to 2018, the economic development index of the Yellow River Basin rose steadily; the ecological status index showed a slow rise and then a downward trend. (2) The degree of coupling between economic development and ecological state has been considered as intensity coupling after 2005. The coupling trend slowly increased and then decreased, indicating that the interaction effect between the economy and ecology was first significantly enhanced and then slowly weakened. (3) The degree of coupling coordination increased from 0.2994 to 0.6266 and then decreased to 0.5917, reflecting the continuous improvement of the relationship between the regional economy and the ecological environment and the trend toward coordination. From 2015 to 2018, due to the gradual increase in the difference between economic development and ecological conditions, the coupling and coordination between the two decreased. Studies have shown that ecological construction and protection should be strengthened to ease the contradiction between the economy and ecology and achieve coordinated development.
Keywords: Yellow River Basin; coupling coordination degree; coupling degree; ecological status; economic development.