Spatiotemporal variations and driving factors of ecosystem health in Anhui Province, China

Understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics and driving factors of ecosystem health is essential for optimizing regional ecological management and guiding targeted restoration efforts. However, research on regional ecosystem health remains limited in rapidly urbanizing inland provinces such as Anhui. This study employed an integrated approach by combining the VORS model with the XGBoost-SHAP framework to assess ecosystem health in Anhui Province and identify its key driving factors. Results indicated that ecosystem service (25.6 %), resilience (6.3 %), and vigor (4.8 %) demonstrated declining trends between 1990 and 2020, while organization (1.8 %) showed a slight increase. These changes underscore the profound impacts of rapid urbanization and land use change on ecosystem health in Anhui Province. The ecosystem health exhibited a distinct south-high-north-low spatial pattern, strongly associated with geomorphological types, and decreased from 0.666 in 1990 to 0.633 in 2020, yet remained at a sub-health level (II). Furthermore, we found that the following order of ecosystem health across different land use types: forest > cropland > grassland > water areas > built-up land. Among all cities, only Suzhou, Bozhou, Bengbu, and Fuyang exhibited improved ecosystem health, while Tongling, Hefei, Anqing, and Wuhu suffered the largest declines, contributing collectively to 47 % of the total provincial decline. Urbanization level and topographical factors (elevation and slope) were the key factors. This study systematically analyzed the changes in ecosystem health, providing an important reference for formulating reasonable land use policies and promoting the implementation of the sustainable development goals.