Abstract: The primary task of implementing the national strategy for ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin is to study and judge the current status of the ecological environment and economic growth of cities along the route, and to clarify the "family basis" for high-quality economic development in the Yellow River Basin. Based on the use of emergy-ecological footprint to measure the ecological environment of cities along the route, the article analyzes the decoupling relationship between ecological footprint and economic growth, and discusses its influencing factors. The results show that, on the one hand, there is a significant decoupling between the ecological footprint and economic growth of the cities along the route, and there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the decoupling state. The downstream "good" decoupling states account for the most, followed by the upstream, and the middle reaches the least. Among them, 38 of the 40 catching-up and decoupling cities are close to double-excellent model cities, and catching-up and decoupling are in a good state; on the other hand, in terms of factors affecting decoupling, the increase in the proportion of the secondary industry is not conducive to the transformation of decoupling, The increase in fiscal expenditure is conducive to the better transformation of the decoupling state.

Key words: yellow River Basin, ecological footprint, economic growth, decoupling model