Spatiotemporal evolution pattern of water yield service of ecosystems in the Shule River Basin, Northwest China, integrating future climate and land use changes

• Water resource supply services of the Shule River Basin were analyzed based on the future scenarios. • Spatial variation of water yield under different future scenarios. • the higher water yield in the high emission scenario. • Precipitation was the most important driver of the water yield. Water resources are essential to human activities and socioeconomic development, providing fundamental security for human survival and sustaining the Earth’s ecological balance. This study investigated water yield, which is directly related to future economic development in the Shule River Basin under different land-use and climate change scenarios. We used land use and future climate data as the input data. Future spatiotemporal patterns of the ecosystem water yield of the Shule River Basin were analysed using the InVEST model based on integrated land use and shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) scenarios for 2030 and 2050. Geodetector model was integrated to investigate the effect of environmental factors on the variations in water yield. The results were as follows: In 2020, desert accounted for 78.6 % of the total area in the Shule River Basin. Under the nine future scenarios, deserts remain the dominant land-use type. The highest water yield in 2020 was mainly in the southern part of the basin, whereas the lowest values were primarily in the north and east. In 2030, under the natural development and farmland protection scenarios (the SSP119 and SSP245 pathways), the water yield will significantly increase in Yumen. In 2050, the water yield is expected to be more pronounced under SSP245 and SSP585. Among the different scenarios, Subei had the highest water yield, whereas Dunhuang had the lowest water yield. The influencing factors of the water yield can be ranked according to their importance as follows: precipitation > digital elevation model (DEM) > temperature > slope > GDP > land-use type > aspect > population density.