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Sustainable development in arid and semi-arid areas is largely constrained by water resources. Expanding ecological space is considered an effective way to conserve water resources. The innovation of this study is the analysis of water consumption in different land-use types from a complete watershed scale, which can evaluate space management against the background of returning farmland to forestland during the past 20 years, and provide suggestions for future space management in semi-arid areas. Based on meteorological data and GIS technology, the current study quantitatively analyzes the spatial and temporal variation characteristics of the water consumption of different vegetation growth stages in the Yanhe River Basin by using the improved Penman formula. The results show that the water consumption of vegetation in the Yanhe River Basin increased from 0.44 km³ in 2000 to 0.68 km³ in 2020. The water consumption of vegetation showed obvious spatial heterogeneity, with the highest value in the central Baota area (1.094 km³) followed by the western Ansai region (0.727 km³), whereas the consumption in the eastern Yanchang area is relatively low (0.483 km³). In addition, the annual average water consumption is (0.381 km³). The cultivated land consumes the most water (0.21 km3), while the woodland consumes the least (0.072 km³). The water consumption per unit area of forested land is the highest, reaching 190 m, and the water consumption of low-coverage grassland is the lowest, only reaching 50 m. Vegetation distribution change could be the main influencing factor of vegetation water consumption change in the Yanhe River Basin. Through the establishment of the sustainable development path of ecological space with water as the core, the high-quality development of ecological environments in arid and semi-arid areas will be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]