Abstract:

According to the panel data of tourism economic system and ecological environment system in 66 central cities (cities, prefectures and leagues) in the Yellow River Basin, China, this paper considered the years of 2008, 2013, and 2018 as time nodes to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of coupling coordination level between tourism economic and ecological environment systems in the Yellow River Basin using the coupling coordination model, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and geographic detector. The results showed that: (1) In 2008, 95% of the central cities in the Yellow River Basin had a moderate coupling coordination level between tourism economic and ecological environment systems or above. In 2013, more than 60% of the central cities in the Yellow River Basin adjusted to a high coordination level. The overall situation of the entire basin showed a nonuniform distribution of “high in the east and low in the west”. In 2018, more than 88% of the central cities in the Yellow River Basin had a high coupling coordination level or above. (2) The spatial clustering of tourism economic and ecological environment systems in the Yellow River Basin was adjusted yearly. The cold spot-marked areas of upstream provinces in the basin clustered continuously and distributed in the eastern part of Qinghai Province and the central part of Gansu Province. Additionally, hot spot-marked areas of middle and lower provinces and regions continued to move and gather to the central part of Henan Province, the western part of Shandong Province, and other regions. (3) The government’s support for tourism and the protection and remediation of the ecological environment, annual growth of expenditure on energy conservation, and environmental protection were the most important driving forces affecting the coordinated development of the two systems in the Yellow River Basin successively. The influence of driving factors, such as the number of invention patents per 10000 people and the number of taxis, increased slowly and then weakened. The science and technology quality education represented by the proportion of research and development expenditure in gross domestic product influenced the coordinated development of the two systems in the Yellow River Basin indistinctively. This study investigated the path of the coordinated development between tourism economic and ecological environment systems in the Yellow River Basin. It provides a theoretical reference for the further improvement of the high-quality development of the Yellow River Ecological Economic Belt.

Key words: tourism economy, ecological environment, spatial and temporal evolution, the Yellow River Basin