Hyper-concentration and low-sediment-concentration rivers: Ecosystem stability and driving forces

•With biological and non-biological elements through the maximum generalized entropy principle, a model was constructed to evaluate the stability of river ecosystem.•Comparison was made on stability and driving factors of sediment-starved clear and sediment-laden turbid river ecosystem.•Sediment-starved clear river ecosystem is affected under more factors than sediment-laden turbid river ecosystem.•Among the internal elements, turbidity has the greatest impact on the ecosystem stability of the two types of river ecosystems.•External background factors determine the direction of river ecosystem evolution.