Abstract: The central region is an important economic hub in our country,but the problem of“central collapse”makes its sustainable development lack of power. In order to explore the relationship between resources and social and economic development in the context of highquality development,this paper takes the five development concepts as the baseline layer to construct the green development index,which is taken as the expected output,and uses the SBM model to calculate the water resource utilization efficiency in the central region from 2003 to2018. Finally,the Tapio decoupling model is used to explore the relationship between social and economic development and water resources in central China at different stages. The results show that the interannual fluctuation of water footprint in the central region is obvious,reaching the maximum value of 683.54 billion m3 in 2015. The green development index of all provinces showed a steady upward trend,and the spatial difference was the least in 2008. The mean value of water resource utilization efficiency in the central region reached the peak in2006,and Shanxi and Hubei reached the highest value. The decoupling relationship between water resources and economic and social development gradually improved over time,indicating that water resources utilization in central China gradually met the requirements of highquality development of the country. This paper has certain guiding significance for the high quality development of the central region.