Mechanisms and Empirical Analysis of How New Quality Productive Forces Drive High-Quality Development to Enhance Water Resources Carrying Capacity in the Weihe River Basin

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.