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Water stress is a major challenge present in drylands and it generally leads to an uneven progress in social, economic, and natural systems. However, its impact on the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in drylands remains unclear. By establishing a comprehensive assessment system incorporating SDGs progress evenness, this study has assessed water stress and its impact on sustainable development in Inner Mongolia, a typical and representative area of Eurasian drylands. Our results suggest that although Inner Mongolia has experienced rapid progress towards its SDGs, disregarding the evenness of SDGs progress overestimates the current situation and ignores regional gaps. Many poorly performing SDGs have made little progress over the past few decades, thus intensifying uneven progress goals. Further analyses have examined how water resources are associated with these problems. Moreover, multiple SDGs related to human essential needs and environmental conservation, including SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), were significantly positively correlated with ecological water consumption, whereas SDGs related to economic growth, such as SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), were positively correlated with industrial water consumption. These findings suggest that a conflict in water allocation for the achievement of different SDGs accounts for the uneven progress across the SDGs and therefore this impedes the sustainable development of these drylands. Therefore, we argue that industrial upgrading, regional planning, and management policies should be integrated into a single unified framework from an SDGs perspective to relieve water stress, thus promoting sustainable development in drylands. • Uneven progress and regional gap in achieving SDGs are induced by water stress and related tradeoffs across SDGs in drylands. • SDGs related to human needs and environmental protection are significantly positively correlated with ecological water use. • Disregarding SDGs progress evenness may overestimate progress and ignore regional gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A sustainable livelihoods indicator across a geographical gradient of aridity was developed. • Sustainable livelihoods vary greatly across dryland zones. • Semi-arid zones have the most vulnerable livelihood rather than the arid zones. • The lack of physical capital and social capital is an important obstacle to sustainable livelihoods development in drylands. • Call for integrated land management and planning approach in drylands. Drylands cover about 41% of the Earth's land surface and are inhabited by more than two billion people, who rely on the diversified ecosystem services provided by drylands for their livelihoods. Achieving sustainable livelihoods (SLs) is a key component of achieving the sustainable development goals set by the agenda in 2030. Although it has aroused extensive interest, research on SLs in drylands at a regional scale is still limited. This paper aims to address this research gap by evaluating SLs through a geographic gradient of aridity in Inner Mongolia. A sustainable livelihood index (SLI) was developed using a wide range of indicators in a sustainable livelihood framework (SLF). The weight of the indicators was determined by the entropy weight method, and the characteristics of the spatial distribution of the SLI were analyzed. The results showed that the SLI varies greatly across aridity zones. In terms of livelihood assets, the SLI in the dry sub-humid zone was 15% higher than in the arid zones, while, surprisingly, semi-arid zones were found to have the most vulnerable livelihoods (rather than the arid zones). The reason for this is that land management and planning approaches are necessary in drylands. In further detail, Moran's I index illustrated that the overall performance of the SLI of each league or city has a positive spatial correlation, while through local spatial correlation it was found that Hinggan and Chifeng are hot spot areas and Hohhot is a cold spot area. The lack of physical and social capital is an important obstacle for SLs. Based on the analysis of SLs in Inner Mongolia, the characteristics of the sustainable development of local residents were revealed. In this paper, we call for an integrated (i.e., focusing on natural and human capital) land management and planning approach for drylands to reflect the nature of the tightly coupled socio-ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]