Shifted vegetation resilience from loss to gain driven by changes in water availability and solar radiation over the last two decades in Southwest China

Recently, Southwest China has experienced continuous climate extremes, which could bring substantial changes to the vegetation resilience of this region, yet little is known about the evolution of vegetation resilience and its key drivers. Here we investigated the vegetation resilience in Southwest China from 2000 to 2020 using a long-term satellite-observed proxy of vegetation productivity, i.e., kernel Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (kNDVI). Specifically, we quantified the trend of vegetation resilience based on “critical slowing down” theory, and explored the drivers of resilience changes. The results indicate that since 2000, although vegetation has continued to get greening, 72.6 % of the areas experienced both greening and a loss of resilience simultaneously. Additionally, the vegetation resilience in Southwest China exhibited a clear breakpoint that switched from a loss status in the period 2000–2011 to a gain status in the period 2012–2020, whereby the greening of vegetation was not necessarily responsible for such an increase in resilience. The transition pattern from resilience loss to gain was observed across most biomes, with the exception of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests. We further found that reduced radiation pressure and increased water availability have led to a shift in resilience from loss to gain. Given that warming dominance is expected during a period of rapid climate change, we suggest that in the future more attention should be paid to the potential critical response of regional vegetation resilience to disturbance.