The Relationship between Water Resources Use Efficiency and Scientific and Technological Innovation Level: Case Study of Yangtze River Basin in China

The Yangtze River Basin's water resource utilization efficiency (WUE) and scientific and technological innovation level (STI) are closely connected, and the comprehension of these relationships will help to improve WUE and promote local economic growth and conservation of water. This study uses 19 provinces and regions along the Yangtze River's mainstream from 2009 to 2019 as its research objects and uses a Vector Auto Regression (VAR) model to quantitatively evaluate the spatiotemporal evolution of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between the two subsystems of WUE and STI. The findings show that: (1) Both the WUE and STI in the Yangtze River Basin showed an upward trend during the study period, but the STI effectively lagged behind the WUE; (2) The CCD of the two subsystems generally showed an upward trend, and the CCD of each province was improved to varying degrees, but the majority of regions did not develop a high-quality coordination stage; (3) The CCD of the two systems displayed apparent positive spatial autocorrelation in the spatial correlation pattern, and there were only two types: high-high (H-H) urbanization areas and low-low (L-L) urbanization areas; (4) The STI showed no obvious response to the impact of the WUE, while the WUE responded greatly to the STI, and both of them were highly dependent on themselves. Optimizing their interaction mechanisms should be the primary focus of high-quality development in the basin of the Yangtze River in the future. These results give the government an empirical basis to enhance the WUE and promote regional sustainable development.