Abstract:Soil conservation service is an important ecosystem regulation service on the Loess Plateau. It is of great significance to clarify the spatial pattern and driving factors of soil conservation service supply and demand for the realization of ecosystem management and the effective allocation of resources on the Loess Plateau. This paper quantified the supply and demand of soil conservation service on the Loess Plateau from 2000 to 2018 using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE), and analyzed their spatial and temporal evolution and supply-demand matching characteristics, and then explored the spatial heterogeneity of the impacts of different factors on the supply-demand balance of soil conservation service based on the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. The results showed that (1) from 2000 to 2018, the supply, demand and the supply-demand ratio of soil conservation service on the Loess Plateau showed a fluctuating trend of increase with the growth rate of 57.13%, 11.9% and 150%, respectively. The supply and demand of soil conservation service both showed a distribution pattern of "high in the southeast and low in the northwest". The high values of supply-demand ratio were located in the northwest and southeast of the Loess Plateau, while the low values were located in the northwest. (2) The supply and demand of soil conservation service was mainly low-low spatial matching and was distributed in the northwestern and southeastern areas of the Loess Plateau. (3) The balance of soil conservation service supply and demand was mainly affected by slope, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), precipitation, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and population density. Among them, slope, NDVI, precipitation and DEM showed obviously positive promotion effects. Population density had both positive and negative effects, but the positive effects were stronger than the negative effects. This study has implications for optimizing the regulation of ecological construction on the Loess Plateau and promoting regional sustainable development.