Studying the carbon effect of land use in watersheds is important for mitigating global warming, promoting coordinated emission reduction in different regions within the watersheds, and realizing high-quality development of the watersheds. Although a number of scholars have carried out relevant studies in the past, they mainly focused on carbon emissions, rarely involved the carbon balance formed by carbon sources and sinks, and lacked relevant studies on the development of low-carbon economy sub-region. Based on this, this study takes the Yellow River Basin as an example, explores the spatial and temporal evolution of carbon emissions from land use in counties in the Yellow River Basin from 1980 to 2020, and predicts the spatial pattern of carbon income and expenditure from land use under natural conditions in 2030 and 2060 using the PLUS model; and then superimposes on the main functional area planning, divides 735 counties in the Yellow River Basin into six low-carbon economic development subregions, and analyzes their economic development The model of their economic development is analyzed. The results show that: (1) the spatial and temporal differentiation of land use carbon balance in the Yellow River Basin has changed greatly over the past 40 years, (2) the spatial distribution pattern of land use carbon balance in the natural context in 2030 and 2060 is more similar to that in 1990, (3) the carbon emission reduction potentials and pattern optimization of the different low-carbon economic development subregions differ greatly, and they have different low-carbon economic development patterns. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for scientifically and rationally formulating economic policies for low-carbon development in the counties of the Yellow River Basin, and also provide an important reference for related studies in other similar basins or regions in the world.
