Socioeconomic Development and Ecosystem Service Value Dynamics in Arid Central Asian: A Basin-scale Comparative Analysis

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires coordinated socioeconomic and ecological development in drylands. However, socioeconomic-ecological relationships are complex and spatially heterogeneous, and how these relationships vary across different levels of socioeconomic activity intensity (SAI) and water-use conditions remains poorly understood. Using population (POP), nighttime light (NTL), agricultural water-use (AWU), and ecosystem service value (ESV) data, we investigated the temporal relationships between ESV and SAI across 19 basins in Arid Central Asia (ACA). By integrating the directions of change and Spearman’s correlations between ESV and socioeconomic factors, we developed a four-pattern classification framework and compared these patterns across different AWU intensities and SAI levels. Results showed that positive ESV-socioeconomic associations predominated across ACA, although substantial differences existed among basins and socioeconomic indicators. Positive ESV-POP associations were generally more common in basins with low and high AWU intensities, whereas negative and non-significant associations occurred more frequently under medium AWU intensity. The four-pattern classification further revealed clear regional differences: Chinese basins predominantly exhibited positive socioeconomic-ecological coordination or ecological recovery under limited socioeconomic activity, whereas Central Asian basins exhibited less favorable temporal configurations. For ESV-NTL relationships, positive socioeconomic-ecological coordination was overwhelmingly dominant, while socioeconomic expansion with ecological pressure occurred in a small number of Central Asian basins. Ecological protection and restoration initiatives and water-management practices provide important governance context for interpreting these regional differences, but their causal effects require further investigation.