Digital Economic Development Benefits Water Environmental Quality in the Yellow River Basin

The digital economy, as an advanced economic form, exerts a profound yet unclear influence on water environmental quality within large-scale watersheds. Focusing on the Yellow River Basin (YRB), the second-largest river in China, this study investigates this complex relationship. We developed a novel dual-engine coupling model integrating Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Light Gradient Boosting Machines (LightGBM) to establish comprehensive multi-input, multi-output linkages between digital economy indicators and water quality parameters. Results show that (1) There are notable spatial disparities and synergies in the basin, regions with more developed digital economy generally have better water environmental quality. (2) The SVM model effectively captures the complex spatial relationship between digital economy inputs and water quality outputs, with an average training accuracy above 0.80 and average validation accuracy above 0.70, indicating that digital economy variables are sensitive to water quality changes. (3) The LightGBM model identifies key driving factors and contributions, revealing that digital industrialization has a more significant impact on water quality improvement than industrial digitization. Thus, digital industrialization is a crucial pathway for green transformation in large—scale catchments.