Terrestrial ecosystem resilience to drought stress and driving mechanisms thereof in the Yellow River Basin, China

Abstract

As the intensity and frequency of droughts increase, the vegetation community structure and terrestrial ecosystem are therefore threatened. However, the terrestrial ecosystem resilience under drought stress or its underlying drivers, remains poorly understood, hindering effective ecological protection and sustainable development efforts. Taking the Yellow River Basin (YRB) as an example, we constructed a resilience evaluation function by integrating the entropy weight method with the stability, resistance and recovery metrics. In general, the proposed resilience metric of terrestrial ecosystem under drought stress was proved to be reliable, highlighting a spatial pattern characterized by higher resilience in the southern regions and lower resilience in the northern areas. The forests exhibited greater resistance but slower recovery compared to grasslands, emerging as the most resilient vegetation type among the local ecosystems. The resilience pattern was largely dominated by precipitation (P), temperature (T) and plant biodiversity (PB), while P and T could have also indirect effects on resilience through PB. Moreover, we also found a significant threshold effect of PB on resilience. This study provides new insights into quantifying drought resilience and dominant drivers, which can help ecological protection and restoration of the YRB.