Ecosystem services (ESs) underpin human well-being and regional development by linking ecological processes with human land–use activities. However, for arid oasis urban agglomerations, evidence remains limited on long-term ES changes, landscape-type contributions, and future responses under alternative development pathways. We quantified five ESs in the UCS from 1990 to 2020 using InVEST and statistical allocation methods and related the resulting service maps to landscape-type contributions and service-pair relationships. The PLUS model generated 2030 land–use pathways, which were used to compare ES responses under BAU, ED, and EP scenarios. The LEAS module identified how climatic, socioeconomic, topographic, and accessibility factors contributed to land–use expansion and thereby indirectly shaped ES patterns. The results show that (1) from 1990 to 2020, food production (FP) increased with fluctuations from 16.30 to 62.06 t·km−2, whereas water yield (WY), carbon storage (CS), soil conservation (SC), and habitat quality (HQ) declined by 27.8%, 5.7%, 27.0%, and 5.4%, respectively; (2) the five ecosystem services showed clear spatial heterogeneity, with food production characterized by high values in the central oasis plain and low values in the northern and southern parts, whereas the other four services showed a south-high/north-low gradient; forestland, grassland, and water bodies were the major landscape types supporting ecosystem-service supply; (3) ecosystem-service interactions changed dynamically: FP showed clear Pearson trade-offs with HQ and weak trade-offs with SC, whereas WY-CS, WY-SC, CS-SC, SC-HQ, WY-HQ, and CS-HQ were mainly synergistic; FP-WY and FP-CS also showed positive Pearson correlations, indicating that food-production expansion in oasis areas was partly coupled with water-resource and cropland–related carbon-storage patterns; and (4) the 2030 scenario simulations showed differentiated responses: under BAU and ED, FP remained nearly stable or slightly decreased, whereas WY, CS, SC, and HQ increased slightly; under EP, all five services improved relative to 2020, with FP, WY, CS, SC, and HQ increasing by approximately 4.08%, 2.33%, 3.13%, 9.60%, and 0.79%, respectively, making EP the most favorable pathway for enhancing ecosystem-service supply and mitigating FP-related trade-offs. The results identify where provisioning gains conflict with water, soil, carbon, and habitat functions and provide a basis for differentiated oasis management in Urumqi, Changji, Shihezi, and Wujiaqu.
Gan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.