Grasslands play a vital role in safeguarding ecological security and sustaining ecosystem functions. Xinjiang hosts some of China’s most abundant grassland resources. However， under the combined impacts of climate change and human activities， grassland degradation has become increasingly prominent in recent years. To comprehensively assess the current status and degree of ecological restoration in the Xinjiang “Grazing Withdrawal and Grassland Restoration” project areas， we evaluated ecosystem structure， ecosystem quality， and ecosystem services by integrating the InVEST and RUSLE models to quantify restoration outcomes. The results show that： （1） In terms of ecosystem quality， net primary productivity （NPP） increased from 190.96 g·m^-2·a^-1 in 2003 to 205.34 g·m^-2·a^-1 in 2021， and fractional vegetation cover （FVC） continued to rise， with improving areas accounting for 69.78% of the total areas. （2） Regarding ecosystem services， water conservation increased from 98.2 mm during 2003-2015 to 121.1 mm during 2015-2021. Soil retention increased from 273.74 to 283.61 t·hm^-2， while windbreak and sand-fixation capacity changed from 2.82 to 3.62 t·hm^-2. （3） The ecological restoration index （ERI） indicated that high-restoration areas （ERI>0.5） accounted for 19.08% of the study areas， whereas low-restoration areas （ERI≤0.2） represented only 0.02%. These findings provide quantitative evidence to support ecological protection and management in the project areas， facilitating zoned， graded， and differentiated ecological restoration strategies.

Grazing withdrawal  /  Ecosystem quality  /  Ecosystem services  /  Degree of ecological restoration