Water stress has induced many environmental and developmental conflicts in the arid basins in the Middle East region under the context of climate change and increasing anthropogenic influence. Quantifying the anthropogenic influence on water stress at the basin scale is very challenging because of insufficient anthropogenic-related spatial data. Given that climate change is a global impact that is hard to mitigate at the basin scale, quantifying anthropogenic influence is practical to inform strategies for alleviating regional water stress. Thus, this study attempts to quantify the contribution of potential anthropogenic factors driving the water stress in the Tigris–Euphrates river basin (TERB) using pure spatial data. The water stress level in the studied basin was evaluated via the water stress index (WSI), which can be obtained as the ratio of water demand to water availability, from the Aqueduct 4.0 dataset. The driving contributions of social development (population, POP; fine particulate matter, PM2.5), economic development (gross domestic product, GDP; electricity consumption, EC), and landscape modification (urban expansion index, UEI; cultivated land expansion index, CEI) factors were quantitatively evaluated based on a spatial statistical geographical detector model (GDM). Assessment showed that nearly 66.13% of the TERB area was under severe water stress, particularly in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The q statistic of the GDM, adopted to quantify the contribution of driving factors, revealed that CEI (0.174), EC (0.145), and GDP (0.123) were the dominant factors driving water stress. These individual influences were further enhanced particularly in the interaction between economic development and landscape modification factors such as UEI and CEI (0.566), PM2.5 and UEI (0.350), EC and CEI (0.346), GDP and CEI (0.323), and PM2.5 and GDP (0.312). The findings of this research can provide some beneficial references to alleviate the TERB’s water stress for its future sustainable development.

The Rapid expansion of the Lanzhou–Xining (Lanxi) urban cluster in China during recent decades poses a threat to the fragile arid environment. Quantitatively assessing the impact of urban expansion on vegetation in the Lanxi urban cluster has profound implications for future sustainable urban planning. This study investigated the urban expansion dynamics of the Lanxi urban cluster and its impacts on regional vegetation between 2001 and 2021 based on time series land cover data and auxiliary remote sensing data, such as digital elevation model (DEM) data, nighttime light data, and administrative boundary data. Thereinto, urban expansion dynamics were evaluated using the annual China Land Cover Dataset (CLCD, 2001–2021). Urban expansion impacts on regional vegetation were assessed via the Vegetation Disturbance Index (VDI), an index capable of quantitatively assessing the positive and negative impacts of urban expansion at the pixel level, which can be obtained by overlaying the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and rainfall data. The major findings indicate that: (1) Over the past two decades, the Lanxi region has experienced rapid urban expansion, with the built-up area expanding from 183.50 km² to 294.30 km², which is an average annual expansion rate of 2.39%. Notably, Lanzhou, Baiyin, and Xining dominated the expansion. (2) Urban expansion negatively affected approximately 53.50 km² of vegetation, while about 39.56 km² saw positive impacts. The negative effects were mainly due to the loss of cropland and grassland. Therefore, cities in drylands should balance urban development and vegetation conservation by strictly controlling cropland and grassland occupancy and promoting intelligent urban growth.