Effects of temperature and water variability on vegetation resilience are influenced by Aridity levels in semi-arid to sub-humid region

The resilience of vegetated ecosystems is essential for sustaining critical ecosystem services, making its quantification crucial in addressing anthropogenic climate change. In this study, based on the concept of critical slowing down, we apply theoretical resilience metrics to remotely-sensed vegetation data in order to explore the spatial distribution of resilience across three vegetation types–forest, grassland, and cropland–on the Loess Plateau and its relationship to temperature and water. We find that forests have higher resilience than grasslands at comparable greenness levels. Resilience is lower in regions with higher temperatures for all three vegetation types, except in high-altitude regions. In the semi-arid to sub-humid zone that dominates the Loess Plateau, resilience is lower in regions with higher aridity for both forests and grasslands. In addition, in more arid regions, forests and grasslands with greater water variability and higher temperatures have higher resilience, while in more humid regions, those with lower water variability and cooler conditions have higher resilience. Forests and grasslands are more sensitive to water than to temperature. These results offer valuable insights for identifying regions at risk of vegetation resilience loss on the Loess Plateau.