Abstract: Taking Tacheng City of Xinjiang as an example, the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics and driving factors of land ecological fragile areas were studied based on the landscape ecological vulnerability assessment method and geographically weighted regression model. The results showed that, from 2010 to 2020, the proportion of low vulnerability areas and relatively low vulnerability areas in Tacheng City decreased by 4.21 percentage points, the proportion of moderate vulnerability area and high vulnerability area increased by 4.45 percentage points, and the area of relatively high vulnerability areas increased first and then decreased, with an overall decrease of 0.24 percentage points. The spatial variation of land ecological vulnerability in Tacheng City from 2010 to 2020 included five trends, namely, the low vulnerability areas were mainly transformed into relatively low vulnerability areas, the relatively low vulnerability areas were transformed into moderate vulnerability areas, the moderate vulnerable areas were transformed into relatively high vulnerable areas, the relatively high vulnerable areas were transformed into the high vulnerable areas, and the relatively high vulnerable areas were transformed into moderate vulnerable areas. The six indexes of the distance from the main road, the distance from the urban built-up area, the population density, the distance from the water area, the vegetation coverage and the elevation were significantly correlated with the land ecological vulnerability. The distance from the main road was positively correlated with land ecological vulnerability. The distance from the water area, the vegetation coverage and the population density were negatively correlated with vulnerability. The distance from the urban built-up area and elevation were positively or negatively correlated with land ecological vulnerability.

Key words: land ecological vulnerability, arid areas, oasis, spatio-temporal evolution, driving factors, Ta’e Basin, Tacheng City, Xinjiang