Spatiotemporal Differentiation and Driving Mechanisms of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in the Jialu River Basin Using Combined Weighting and Geodetector

Abstract

The water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) lays a foundational basis for long-term coordinated water resource governance. Based on the Driving–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework, this study constructed a WRCC evaluation system containing 21 indicators and adopted a combined weighting method integrating entropy weight and coefficient of variation. Weighted Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and geographical detector tools were jointly applied to quantify spatial-temporal WRCC disparities within the Jialu River Basin, alongside extraction of core driving forces during 2010–2022. Marked spatial disparities existed across administrative units, with basin-average WRCC ranging from 0.18–0.35. Zhengzhou maintained relatively high carrying levels, Kaifeng stayed chronically low, Xuchang improved after 2019, while Zhoukou experienced an overall decline, forming a relatively stable spatial pattern: Zhengzhou > Zhoukou > Xuchang > Kaifeng. Socioeconomic factors stood among the major drivers of spatial divergence. R&D expenditure and urbanization rate exhibited the highest explanatory capacity, with respective q statistics of 0.58 and 0.57. In contrast, natural factors including precipitation and groundwater reserves showed limited impacts, with q values of only 0.11 and 0.09. Factor interaction analysis showed that bivariate enhancement was the primary interaction type (70.53%), followed by nonlinear enhancement (21.05%) and nonlinear weakening (8.42%). The mean q value of the interactive effects reached 0.58, which was 45.0% higher than that of individual factors, suggesting prominent multi-factor synergistic effects. These results deliver empirical evidence for differentiated watershed regulation and cross-jurisdictional water–ecological coordination, and offer actionable governance insights for densely urbanized plain tributary basins with intense human–water conflicts.