Untangling the coupling relationships between socio-economy and eco-environment in arid inland river basin

Water reallocation in arid inland river basins could influence the interactions between socio-economy and eco-environment. However, how these interactions are teleconnected among regions is often neglected. Here, we chose the Heihe River Basin, China’s second largest inland river basin in arid areas, where an important ecological water devision project was implemented in 2000, to examine the spatial and temporal patterns of the coupling relationships between socio-economy and eco-environment. The downstream showed the greatest ecological and environmental quality improvement, which was closely teleconnected with the midstream. There was an abrupt change in the correlation between downstream eco-environment and midstream socio-economy, which turned from negative to positive around 2000. We concluded that the water reallocation project did not cause long-term negative effects on midstream economy but alleviated the conflicts between socio-economic development in midstream and eco-environmental quality in downstream due to the improved water use efficiency. Our research provides a more comprehensive way to examine the coupling relationships between socio-economy and eco-environment in inland river basins, which is helpful in assessing the effectiveness of policy implementation and promoting the sustainable development.