Determination of the drivers of macro-scale ecosystem service values and the evolution of spatial patterns

China's Yellow River Basin (YRB) is among the country's most intricate watersheds in terms of topographic and geomorphological features. Additionally, it poses a significant barrier for China's national ecological security and economic growth. An essential tool for scientific land use and management planning in the YRB, additionally for improving watershed system management, ecological protection, and restoration capacities, is examining the effects of land type conversion on the spatial variations of ecosystem service value (ESV). The spatial characteristic changes of ESV in the YRB were analyzed by using the grid method and the adjusted equivalence factor method. Using a geodetector, the geographical effects of the contributing factors on ESV were examined, and the correlations between the influencing factors and the changes in ESV were analyzed based on the grey correlation model temporally. The finding indicates that (1) The single motivation of ecological land in the YRB between 1980 and 2020 has a positive increase, and the single motivation of cultivated land, wetland and unutilized land has negatively increased. Its combined motivation is in a positively increasing state. (2) From 1980 to 2020, there was a change in the YRB ESV supply service, regulatory service, support service, and cultural service; these services first decreased and then increased. (3) The higher and lower delta regions of the YRB are the primary areas of elevated distribution and aggregated growth of ESVs; the Taihang Mountains and the Qinling Mountains are the dividing line of the spatial distribution of the various ESVs. The different ESVs in the YRB from 1980 to 2020 show a stepwise change in spatial distribution. (4) The effects of rainfall, habitat quality, population density, GDP and DEM on ESV were stronger in space, and soil type, slope, population density, GDP and nighttime light index were more highly correlated with ESV in time. Throughout the study period, as socioeconomic and anthropogenic activity intensities grew, so did their effects on ESV in the YRB. The ecological environment quality of the YRB's upstream and the delta at the mouth of the sea had greatly improved due to the successful ecological management of the region between 1980 and 2020, which made the region’s ESVs’ spatial aggregative differentiation of ESVs worse. This study provides the scientific basis and tools for decision-making on land use, management, and the spatial planning of socioeconomic development in the YRB.