An event-triggered adaptive backstepping control method is proposed to address the multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) formation tracking problem, which involves four degrees of freedom (4-DOF), nonlinear dynamics, parametric uncertainties and unknown external disturbances. By designing an appropriate event-triggering condition, the proposed approach significantly reduces communication and computational burdens, while effectively suppressing the effects of disturbances and uncertainties, and achieving efficient and robust cooperative control of multi-AUV formations. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed method ensures that all closed-loop system signals are uniform ultimately bounded (UUB) and effectively avoids Zeno behavior, which verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of the designed control strategy.