The Loess Plateau is one of the most severely affected regions by soil erosion in the world, with a fragile ecological environment. Vegetation plays a key role in the region’s ecological restoration and protection. This study employs the Geographical Detector (Geodetector) model to quantitatively assess the impact of natural and human factors, such as temperature, precipitation, soil type, and land use, on vegetation growth. It aims to reveal the characteristics and driving mechanisms of vegetation cover changes on the Loess Plateau over the past 26 years. The results indicate that from 1995 to 2020, the vegetation coverage on the Loess Plateau shows an increasing trend, with a fitted slope of 0.01021 and an R² of 0.96466. The Geodetector indicates that the factors with the greatest impact on vegetation cover in the Loess Plateau are temperature, precipitation, soil type, and land use. The highest average vegetation coverage is achieved when the temperature is between −4.8 and 2 °C or 12 and 16 °C, precipitation is between 630.64 and 935.51 mm, the soil type is leaching soil, and the land use type is forest. And the interaction between all factors has a greater effect on the vegetation cover than any single factor alone. This study reveals the factors influencing vegetation growth on the Loess Plateau, as well as their types and ranges, providing a scientific basis and guidance for improving vegetation coverage in this region.

Habitat suitability assessment for forest and grassland ecosystems is a critical component of ecological restoration and land use planning in the Loess Plateau, aiming to advance soil and water conservation and foster sustainable ecological environment development. Despite progress in vegetation restoration, systematic evaluations of habitat suitability in complex geomorphic regions like the Loess Plateau remain scarce, particularly in balancing hydrological and ecological trade-offs. The Yanhe River Basin (7725 km²), a sediment-prone tributary of the Yellow River, exemplifies the challenges of soil erosion and semi-arid climatic constraints, making it a critical case for evaluating restoration strategies. This study employed a comprehensive approach utilizing Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Geographic Detector, mathematical statistics, and other methods. An evaluation indicator system and methodology were established to assess the suitability of forest and grassland habitats in the Yanhe River Basin, evaluating the suitability and quality improvement potential under the current land use conditions. The results indicate: (1) The dominant factors influencing the suitable distribution of forests include photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), soil total phosphorus content, annual precipitation, and elevation. For grasslands, the dominant factors include photosynthetically active radiation, annual average temperature, elevation, and annual precipitation. (2) In the watershed, forestland and grassland areas classified as moderately suitable or higher cover 1064.9 km² and 4196.9 km², accounting for 91.9% and 94.7% of their total respective areas, indicating a generally rational spatial allocation of forest and grassland ecosystems. (3) The improvable area for forests measures 366 km² (34.4% of moderately or higher suitability zones), with most already meeting coverage thresholds. In contrast, grasslands have an improvable area of 2491.6 km² (59.4% of moderately or higher suitability zones), where over half of the area remains below coverage thresholds corresponding to their habitat conditions. (4) Forests can adopt natural restoration-focused low-intensity interventions through strengthened closure management, while grasslands require spatially tailored measures—such as precipitation interception and enhanced stewardship—targeting suitability-based potential grades, collectively achieving overall improvement in grassland vegetation coverage. This study represents the first systematic evaluation of forest–grassland habitat suitability in the Yanhe River Basin, elucidating its spatial distribution patterns and providing critical insights for watershed-scale ecological restoration.

Understanding the tradeoff and synergy among ecosystem services (ESs) and their influencing factors is a prerequisite for simultaneously managing multiple ESs and holds significant importance for achieving harmonious regional development between humans and nature. Existing research predominantly focuses on the overall characteristics of tradeoff and synergy, while studies on spatially differentiated tradeoff and synergy characteristics remain limited. In addition, their driving mechanisms are not yet fully understood, especially in large-scale river basins. This study, taking the Yellow River Basin (YRB) from 2000 to 2023 as the study area, employed multi-source data and multiple models to quantify three ESs, including soil erosion negative service (indirectly reflecting the soil conservation service function), carbon sequestration, and water yield. Combining Pearson correlation analysis, a geographically weighted regression model, and optimal parameter geographical detection, we identified the spatiotemporal interaction relationships and their dominant drivers. The results indicated that soil erosion negative services decreased by 24.89%, while carbon sequestration and water yield increased by 53.30% and 38.47%, respectively. The most significant improvements in the three ESs were observed in the midstream of the YRB. Spatially, soil erosion negative service decreased from west to east. Carbon sequestration exhibited a spatial pattern of higher values in the south and east and lower values in the north and west. Water yield decreased from south to north. Tradeoff relationships existed between soil erosion negative service and carbon sequestration and between soil erosion negative service and water yield. A synergistic relationship existed between carbon sequestration and water yield. Over time, the proportion of areas showing synergy among these three ESs decreased. However, synergistic areas remained more common than tradeoff areas. This was especially evident in the relationship between carbon sequestration and water yield, where synergy consistently accounted for over 78% of the YRB. Rainfall, soil properties, and fractional vegetation cover were identified as important drivers of the tradeoff/synergy between soil erosion negative service and carbon sequestration. Rainfall, temperature, fractional vegetation cover, and elevation were significant drivers of the interactions between carbon sequestration and water yield. Population density, fractional vegetation cover, GDP density, and rainfall were the main influencing factors for the tradeoff/synergy between soil erosion negative service and water yield. Our general methodology and results provide valuable decision-making references for policymakers, highlighting the necessity of considering the spatiotemporal heterogeneity in ESs tradeoff characteristics and their underlying driving factors.

The Loess Plateau is one of the most severely affected regions by soil erosion in the world, with a fragile ecological environment. Vegetation plays a key role in the region's ecological restoration and protection. Most existing studies focus on the trends of vegetation cover change, while fewer studies investigate the driving factors or only conduct quantitative analyses. This study uses the Geodetector (Geographic Detector Model) to assess the impact of natural and human factors such as temperature, precipitation, soil type, and land use on vegetation growth, revealing the characteristics and driving mechanisms of vegetation cover changes on the Loess Plateau from 1982 to 2022. It also quantitatively calculates the influence of different factors. The findings indicate that vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau has generally risen from 1982 to 2022, but there was a noticeable difference around 2000. The annual mean slope of vegetation cover from 1982 to 2000 was 0.00129, which increased to 0.01075 from 2000 to 2022. The Geodetector indicates that the factors with the greatest impact on vegetation cover in the Loess Plateau are temperature, precipitation, soil type, and land use, and the interaction between these factors has a greater effect on vegetation cover than any single factor alone. This study identifies the ideal ranges or types for vegetation growth on the Loess Plateau over four time periods, offering a scientific basis for soil restoration and soil and water conservation efforts in the area.

Water resources, energy, land, and carbon emissions are the core resource and environmental factors that support the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Using the panel data of nine provinces and regions in the Yellow River Basin from 2000 to 2024 as the research sample, by constructing the “water-energy-land-carbon” comprehensive coupling and coordination index (WELCNI), this study analyzes the coupling and coordinated development characteristics of the four subsystems and the composite system from both temporal evolution and spatial differentiation dimensions. The obstacle degree model is used to identify the core single obstacle factor restricting the system’s development, and the geographical detector model is used to reveal the interactive coupling driving mechanism of the obstacle factors. Combined with the upper, middle, and lower divisions of the basin for comparative analysis, this study systematically explores the evolution laws and constraint mechanisms of the basin system’s collaborative development. The research results show: (1) During the study period, the four subsystems of water resources, energy, land, and carbon emissions in the Yellow River Basin and the comprehensive coupling and coordination level of WELCNI have all continuously increased, and the quality of system collaborative development has significantly improved. (2) The coupling and coordinated development of the basin system presents a stable spatial gradient pattern of east being stronger a0nd west being weaker. The downstream areas of Shandong and Henan are the core areas of high-level coordination, while the upstream provinces such as Qinghai and Sichuan have weak development foundations and are the main bottleneck areas restricting the overall balanced development. (3) The constraint intensity of single obstacle factors shows a hierarchical characteristic of energy dimension > water resources dimension > carbon emissions dimension > land dimension. The energy consumption volume is the main obstacle factor, water resource endowment insufficiency is the secondary constraint key, and the land system has the weakest constraint effect. (4) Each obstacle factor has a significant collaborative enhancement interaction effect. The water, energy, and carbon systems form a complex linkage constraint network. Coal production, water resources volume, and total carbon emissions are the core factors with strong coupling effects. The cross-system superimposed constraint effect is prominent, and only unit GDP energy consumption is an independent constraint factor with weak linkage influence. This study systematically clarifies the evolution mechanism and obstacle mechanism of the “water-energy-land-carbon” system coupling and coordination in the Yellow River Basin, providing scientific references and theoretical support for differentiated zoning control, multi-factor collaborative governance, breaking through system development bottlenecks, and promoting the high-quality collaborative development of the basin.

A scientific assessment of ecological security (ES) and its nonlinear mechanism for key driving factors in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) is of great significance for ecological protection and sustainable development. This study proposes an ES assessment framework, which links ecosystem risk (ER), ecosystem health (EH), and ecosystem services (ESS). We applied this framework to reveal the YRB's ES characteristics from 2000 to 2023, and explored the reliability of the assessment results. By coupling the XGBoost‐SHAP model, we identified the dominant driving factors of ES and quantified their nonlinear response relationships as well as key thresholds. The results indicated that under the comprehensive effect of significant decline in ER, overall improvement in EH and ESS in the YRB, the ES level showed a steady upward trend, with a stable pattern of high in the south and low in the north, and significant spatial positive correlation characteristics. The forest and grassland proportion, precipitation, vegetation coverage, and the construction land proportion are the dominant driving factors affecting ES, and each driving factor exhibited clear threshold characteristics in its impact on ES. Among them, the beneficial effects of the forest and grassland proportion, precipitation, and vegetation coverage on ES significantly increased when exceeding the thresholds of 49.6%, 512.2 mm, and 67.2%, respectively. The ecological impact of construction land proportion becomes negative when exceeding the threshold of 10.5%, showing a coercing effect. Our research not only provides key control objects and threshold basis for the ES management in the YRB, but also provides a robust framework for other similar regional ES research.