Scale effects of spatial patterns of ecosystem services in the Tarim River Basin in Central Asia

Determining the effects of different scales on the geographical distribution of ecosystem services and validating the underlying driving mechanisms have been considered to be the keys to the sustainable management of ecosystem services. Our goal was to look at the Tarim River Basin’s sub-watershed and county level trade-offs, synergistic linkages, and driving forces among habitat quality, soil conservation, and carbon storage. Variations in ecosystem services in the scenarios of natural land use and farmland preservation in 2030 under the influence of precipitation. The findings indicate the following: (1) The northern mountainous region has the majority of the high-value ecosystem service areas. Woodland contains highly valuable carbon reserves. (2) Correlations between different ecosystem services can vary across scale. The strength of synergistic relationship in sub-basins is higher than the county scale. Ecosystem services exhibit both synergistic and trade-off relationships in space on the two scales, with low-low agglomeration being the primary type of synergistic association. (3) Precipitation is the driver that affects ecosystem services the most. At the sub-basin level, precipitation and habitat quality are traded off with carbon storage. (4) By 2030, agricultural conservation scenarios and ecosystem services in natural scenarios will work in concert. Furthermore, synergistic are ecosystem services and precipitation.