Lei Shi

In ecologically fragile and geomorphologically complex mountainous regions, ensuring a smooth transition from poverty alleviation to multidimensional sustainable rural development remains a key issue in regional governance. Focusing on the Qinba Mountains, a typical former contiguous poverty-stricken region in China covering 18 prefecture-level cities in six provinces, this study uses 2009–2023 prefecture-level panel data to examine the spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanisms of coordinated rural revitalization. An integrated framework of “multi-dimensional evaluation–spatiotemporal tracking–attribution diagnosis” is developed by combining the improved AHP–entropy-weight TOPSIS method, the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model, spatial Markov chains, spatial autocorrelation, and the Geodetector. The results show pronounced subsystem asynchrony. Livelihood and Well-being Security (U5) improves steadily, while Level of Industrial Development (U1), Civic Virtues and Cultural Vibrancy (U3), and Rural Governance (U4) also rise but with clear spatial differentiation; by contrast, Quality of Human Settlements (U2) fluctuates in stages under ecological fragility. Overall, the coupling coordination level advances from the Verge of Imbalance to Intermediate Coordination, yet the regional pattern remains uneven, with eastern basin cities leading and western deep mountainous cities lagging. State transitions display both policy responsiveness and path dependence: the probability of retaining the original state ranges from 50.0% to 90.5%; low-level neighborhoods reduce the upward transition probability to 25%, whereas medium-to-high-level neighborhoods raise the upward transition probability of low-level cities from 36.36% to 53.33%. Spatial dependence is also evident, with Global Moran’s I increasing, with fluctuations, from 0.331 in 2009 to 0.536 in 2023; high-value clusters extend along the Guanzhong Plain–Han River Valley corridor, while low-value clusters remain relatively locked in mountainous border areas. Driving mechanisms show clear stage-wise succession. At the single-factor level, the explanatory power of Road Network Density (F6) declines from 0.639 to 0.287, whereas Terrain Relief Amplitude (F1) becomes the dominant background constraint in the later stage (q = 0.772). Multi-factor interactions are generally enhanced. In particular, the traditional infrastructure-led pathway weakens markedly, with F1 ∩ F6 = 0.055 in 2023, while the interaction between terrain and consumer market vitality becomes dominant, with F1 ∩ F7 = 0.987 in 2023. On this basis, three major pathways are identified: government fiscal intervention and transportation accessibility improvement, capital agglomeration and market demand stimulation, and human–earth system adaptation and ecological value realization. These findings provide quantitative evidence for breaking spatial lock-in and improving cross-regional resource allocation in ecologically constrained mountainous regions.

Water-scarce river basins face the dual challenge of sustaining development progress while maintaining water resources carrying capacity (WRCC), yet city-scale evidence remains limited on how New Quality Productive Force (NQPF)-driven high-quality development reshapes WRCC through coupled coordination and development–pressure decoupling processes. Using a balanced panel of 15 cities in the Weihe River Basin (WRB) during 2014–2023, an integrated analytical framework was implemented by combining composite index evaluation (WRCC and the high-quality development index (HQDI)), the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model, Tapio decoupling diagnosis between HQDI and total water use (TWU), and logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition. The results indicate that: (1) both the HQD index and WRCC exhibited sustained growth, with their CCD improving significantly from mild imbalance to primary coordination, while a distinct spatial pattern of “Guanzhong leading, northern Shaanxi improving, and eastern Gansu stabilizing” emerged; (2) the HQDI–WRCC linkage was further supported by pooled statistical tests and a two-way fixed effects specification with city-clustered robust standard errors, confirming a significant positive association (Pearson = 0.517, p < 0.01; Spearman = 0.183, p < 0.05) and a stable positive effect of HQDI on WRCC (β = 0.194, p = 0.0088); (3) Tapio results reveal an overall transition from earlier volatility toward a later-period regime dominated by Weak Decoupling (WD) and Strong Decoupling (SD), implying that development progress became less dependent on rising TWU, although pronounced inter-city heterogeneity persisted; (4) LMDI decomposition further identified water use intensity and industrial structure as primary inhibitors of water consumption, whereas the R&D scale effect increased nearly 60-fold, emerging as a major driver of water demand. This study provides a mechanistic basis for coordinating ecological protection and high-quality development under rigid water constraints in water-scarce basins.