Spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanisms of habitat quality on the Loess Plateau

The Loess Plateau, serving as a crucial ecological barrier in China, plays a pivotal role in maintaining and enhancing the habitat quality. This study focuses on the Loess Plateau as a research area. It innovatively integrates the InVEST with the XGBoost-SHAP model to systematically investigate the spatio-temporal characteristics and driving mechanisms of habitat quality changes. A decline in habitat quality has been observed in the study area over the past three decades. The degree of degradation shows a distinct northwest-southeast spatial gradient. High-quality habitat areas are predominantly located in mountainous ecological zones such as the Lüliang Mountains and the Taihang Mountains, as well as on the southern Shanbei Plateau and the western Longzhong Plateau Terrain ruggedness index (TRI), population density (Pop), and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are the primary factors driving habitat quality spatiotemporal differentiation. The study provides a scientific foundation for ecosystem services management on the Loess Plateau.