The Henan Yellow River Basin is an ecological support belt for the entire basin. It holds a significant position in high-quality development and ecological conservation within the Yellow River Basin. However, due to improper development activities, such as urban expansion and deforestation of farmland, certain areas of the region have encountered a series of ecological issues, posing significant challenges to ecosystem services. The scientific foundation for the sustainable development of the ecological environment in the Henan Yellow River Basin is established by research on the evolution characteristics and driving factors of ecosystem service functions. This study focuses on the Henan Yellow River Basin, by introducing remote sensing data and biomass data, assessing the spatiotemporal variations in ecosystem service by the InVEST model—including carbon stock, water yield, and soil conservation—from 2000 to 2020. It analyzes the ecosystem service functions of different land use types. It employs the Geodetector to identify the dominant driving factors behind the changes in these functions based on the improved InVEST model evaluated results. The findings reveal that from 2000 to 2020, total carbon stock increased by 1.86%, carbon stock per unit area rose by 1.81%, and the spatial distribution remained largely stable. The high-value regions were clustered in the west and part of the north, primarily consisting of forest land. Carbon stock capacity in other regions, mainly farmland and construction land, was poor, with forest land having the strongest carbon sequestration capacity, followed by grassland. Total water yield decreased by 20.08%, and water yield per unit area decreased by 20.03%, with a spatial distribution closely following the trend of precipitation distribution. The high-value regions were clustered in the south, primarily in forest land and farmland. The total amount of soil conservation decreased by 19.96%, and soil conservation per unit area decreased by 19.93%, with spatial distribution patterns similar to those of carbon stock and water yield. The high-value regions were concentrated in the southwestern and northern forested regions, while soil conservation capacity in areas primarily consisting of farmland and construction land was weaker. The divergence of carbon stock was most influenced by population density, water yield by precipitation, and soil conservation by slope. In conclusion, during the study period, while carbon storage increased, the significant decline in water yield and soil conservation highlighted critical issues in the ecosystem service functions of the region. These findings indicate the need for targeted conservation measures and sustainable development strategies to address the decline in ecosystem services and mitigate adverse environmental impacts, ensuring the long-term health of the region’s ecosystems. This study offers an in-depth understanding of the differentiation of ecosystem service functions and their driving factors, enabling precise assessment of regional ecosystem services, and providing a theoretical foundation for formulating effective regional ecological conservation policies.

With the intensification of human activities and climate variability, balancing ecosystem service (ES) supply and demand is critical for regional sustainable development. Existing studies predominantly focus on linear driving effects and lack integrated quantitative frameworks that link the spatiotemporal dynamics of ES supply–demand relationships (ESSDRs) with their nonlinear driving mechanisms, and few have systematically quantified the critical thresholds of driving factors and their interactive effects. To address these research gaps, this study quantified the supply, demand, and supply–demand ratios of four key ESs (food production [FP], carbon sequestration [CS], water yield [WY], and soil retention [SR]) in the Yellow River Basin of Henan Province (2000–2020) using the InVEST model and multi-source data. An analytical framework integrating the Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model and Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) was established to identify dominant drivers, reveal nonlinear response patterns, and quantify critical thresholds. The results showed that FP and CS supply increased continuously, while WY and SR supply slightly declined; CS and WY demand grew faster than supply, leading to expanding deficits, whereas FP and SR maintained relative balance. Spatially, FP/CS surpluses concentrated in eastern plains and southwestern forests, WY deficits occurred in the northwest, and SR balance prevailed in most regions. Dominant drivers differed by ES type—arable land proportion (FP), population density (CS), precipitation (WY), and slope (SR)—all exhibiting distinct threshold effects (e.g., arable land proportion >0.6, slope >3°). These findings provide novel insights into ESSDR spatial heterogeneity and threshold-based regulation, offering a scientific basis for differentiated ecological management and sustainable spatial planning in the Yellow River Basin and similar ecologically vulnerable regions.

A nuanced grasp of land use/cover changes, along with their drivers, is essential for effective land use management and ecological restoration. A new perspective on land use/cover changes analysis was proposed, which involves analyzing land use/cover changes and their driving forces at scales such as regional, geomorphological (plains, hilly area and mountainous area), and territorial spatial planning (core area and expansion collaborative area) scales based on the 2000, 2010, and 2020 land use/cover data in the Yellow River Basin of Henan Province. The land use/cover changes were scrutinized by employing the degree of land use/cover dynamics, transfer matrix, and change mapping model. The key drivers at each scale were unearthed by utilizing a geo-detector. The results show that: 1) The distribution characteristics of land types under different scale areas in the Henan section of the Yellow River Basin have obvious differences in that farmland is gathered in the plains, woodland in the mountains, and water in the core area. 2) From the dynamic attitude, it can be seen that the land use pattern of the plains and the core fluctuates sharply between 2000 and 2020, and the fluctuation of the mountain area is smaller, but the construction land in the mountain area has the most drastic change, the forest in the plains shrinks most obviously, and the core area has a large fluctuation of agricultural land. Compared with 2000-2010, the fluctuation amplitude between 2010 and 2020 is significantly reduced. 3) The dominant type of land change at all scales is the flow of agricultural land into construction land, while construction land also encroaches heavily on forest land. In the whole region, the plains and the core area, farmland also flows mainly into wetlands and waters, in the mountainous area, farmland flows heavily into forests and grasslands, and construction land continues to encroach on shrublands, and in the expansion and collaboration area, farmland encroaches heavily on grasslands. 4) Areas of intense land use change at all scales are concentrated in and around built-up areas. 5) The drivers of GDP and population dominate in the whole region, plains, core and extended collaboration areas, population and slope have the greatest influence in the hilly areas, slope and temperature play a major role in the mountainous areas, and the interactions of all factors show an increasing trend. The results of the study show that there are differences in land changes and their drivers at different scales in the Yellow River Basin of Henan, so the overall or local ecological restoration measures concerning the Yellow River Basin should be formulated with attention to problem orientation, comprehensiveness of the measures, and pertinence. The spatial layout of ecological, production, and living areas should be rationally planned according to local conditions and the rationalization of resource utilization.