Identification of conservation priorities in the major basins of Central Asia

Ecosystem services (ESs) provided by the major basins of Central Asia are critical to human well-being and have attracted the attention of the international community. The identification of conservation priorities is of great significance for the maintenance and protection of key ESs. In this study, we quantified the spatiotemporal changes of net primary productivity (NPP), soil conservation (SC), water yield (WY) and habitat quality (HQ) in the major basins of Central Asia from 1995 to 2015. In addition, a GIS-based ordered weighted averaging (OWA) multi-criterion valuation method was adopted to identify potential conservation areas under 11 scenarios. Conservation priorities were determined by comparing the conservation efficiency under each scenario. Then, a broad range of indicators were considered to distinguish the driving factors affecting ESs in conservation priorities. The results show that the average conservation efficiency in the Issyk-Kul Basin was the highest, followed by the Am Darya Basin, Ili-Balkhash Basin and Syr Darya Basin. We observed that the conservation efficiency of the four ESs declined continuously in the Ili-Balkhash Basin from 1995 to 2015, while it changed steadily in the other three basins. Correlation analysis indicated that natural factors (e.g., precipitation and topography) were the main driving factors of WY, SR and NPP in conservation priorities, while HQ was more affected by socio-economic factors (e.g., population density and both cropland and urban percentages). The identification of conservation priorities and their driving factors plays an important role in ensuring the ecological security of the lower reaches, regulating the regional water balance and stabilizing the climate pattern.