黄河流域黄土高原生态质量时空演变格局及其驱动因素.

[Objective] This research aims to explore the temporal and spatial status of the ecological quality evolution and the main driving factors of its evolution in the Loess Plateau, and to provide the theoretical basis for the improvement of regional ecological quality and sustainable development in the Yellow River Basin. Methods] Based on the 'Driving Force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response' (DPSIR) model, 14 indexes reflecting the social and economic situations, natural environment and ecological governance were selected to build the comprehensive evaluation index system. The weight of each index was defined by the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and the comprehensive evaluation indexes were calculated by the weighted average. The Ridge Regression Model was used to quantitively assess the driving factors of the ecological quality evolution. [Results] The ecological quality of the Loess Plateau in the Yellow River Basin exhibited a distinctive spatiotemporal heterogeneity, with the high-quality areas concentrating in the midstream and low quality areas in the upstream, showing the unique spatial pattern of high-quality in the southeast and low- quality in the northwest'. The medium-quality areas and above increased from 40.56% in 2000 to 70.36% in 2020. The ecologically improved areas in the past 2 decades took up 94.44% of the total research area, and the ecologically improved counties accounted for 91.57% of the total counties. The Ridge Regression Model explained 99.4% of the ecological evolution, demonstrating the relatively higher contributions from the vegetative cover and the annual precipitation to such evolution. [Conclusion] The ecological quality in the Loess Plateau was improved, and the spatiotemporal evolution of ecological quality was mainly driven by vegetative cover and annual precipitation. It is recommended that the spatial pattern of ecosystems is further optimized on the basis of a scientific and rational increase in vegetation cover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]