LAUSR

Water resource ecological security is a key foundation for ensuring human survival and maintaining ecosystem stability. A comprehensive evaluation index system is developed using the ‘driving force-pressure-state-impact-response’ (DPSIR) paradigm to examine the state of regional water ecological security. Entropy weight TOPSIS was used to determine the weights of each index, and the spatial differentiation characteristics and temporal and spatial deduction characteristics were analyzed. According to the research results, the weight coefficients obtained from the DPSIR mathematical model reveal a clear stratification of spatial differentiation features. From 2014 to 2023, the ecological water environment in the northern border areas showed an overall trend of early (2014–2017) increase, followed by decline (2018–2020), and then recovery or secondary increase (2020–2023), indicating the existence of spatiotemporal fluctuation patterns. Regional ecological carrying capacity essentially illustrates that the tendency of development is low in the northeast and strong in the southwest. Tacheng has the highest ecology load carrying capacity, with an average value of 0.478. The top three water resources carrying capacities are Tacheng, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture and Urumqi.