The upper reaches of the Yellow River span arid, semi-arid, sub-humid and humid/semi-humid climate zones. Soil conservation service (SCS) of the region is an important guarantee for preventing soil erosion and promoting high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. We used the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation, Geographically Weighted Regression model, trend line method and the factor influence degree defined in this paper, in combination with remote sensing and precipitation data, to identify the change regions of SCS in the upper reaches of Yellow River from 2001 to 2015, to analyzed spatial-temporal variation characteristics of SCS and then identified their influencing factors and quantified its influence degree. The results showed that:(1) The declining area of SCS was mainly located in arid and semi-arid climate region of the northeast parts of the study area, which was mostly concentrated along the Yellow River from Jishi Gorge to Hekou Village. The ascending area of SCS was mainly located in the semi-arid, humid and semi-humid climate region of the west and south of the study area, which was concentrated in mountains and plateaus. (2) Precipitation was the dominant factor affecting SCS in the declining subareas, while vegetation coverage and precipitation was the dominant factors affecting SCS in the significantly and slightly ascending subareas, respectively. (3) Facing the uncertainty in precipitation in the future, improving vegetation coverage was the fundamental strategy to improve SCS, and the suggestions of soil and water conservation measures were also put forwarded according to the influence intensity of dominant factors. Thisstudy could provide a scientific basis for coping with future climate change, formulating zoning and classification strategies and measures and improving soil conservation services.