Spatiotemporal Evolution of and Regional Disparities in Coupling Coordination between Economic Development Quality and Urban Ecological Resilience in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Good economic progress and the coordinated development of urban ecological resilience are essential for achieving ecological protection and high-quality development. This study uses 2011-2021 panel data on 110 Yangtze River Economic Belt cities and employs an entropy-weighted technique for order of preference by similarity to an ideal solution, coupled coordination degree model, and kernel density estimation to determine spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of and regional differences in the coupled coordination relationship between economic development quality and urban ecological resilience. Results reveal (1) a close relationship between the two, whose degree of coupled coordination increases yearly, continuously narrowing the disparity in urban coordinated development. (2) The coupled coordination types change from imbalance and decline to the dominance of coordinated development, exhibiting a stepwise spatial pattern of “downstream>midstream>upstream.” Spatial agglomeration is evident, forming a clustering characteristic predominantly led by high–high agglomeration areas downstream and low–low agglomeration areas upstream. (3) The most pronounced differences are observed upstream, and coupling coordination differs most prominently between the upstream and downstream regions. The study concluded that interregional disparities are the primary factors influencing the spatial differences in the coupling coordination level. The findings provide scientific theoretical support for future urban planning and national strategies.