How to improve drought resilience to guarantee regional sustainable development

Drought is a pressing environmental issue with profound socio-economic impacts. Frequent drought disasters around the world have brought huge impacts and challenges, severely constraining the sustainable development of cities. How to improve drought resilience to guarantee regional sustainable development has become a hot research topic. In this study, we developed a comprehensive framework to assess drought resilience in China, analyzing its spatiotemporal evolution characteristics, uncovering the underlying impact mechanisms, and projecting future resilience trends across different regions of the country. Over the past 12 years, the average drought resilience level in China has risen by 14.4 %. Central and eastern coastal provinces demonstrated higher resilience levels, contrasting with the western inland regions' lower resilience. A significant positive spatial correlation was observed in China's drought resilience, with high-value clusters emerging in the southeastern and northeastern regions. Among the sub-resilience dimensions, social resilience had the most substantial impact. The prediction model suggests that the drought resilience level will increase modestly by 6.2 % across provinces, maintaining the spatial pattern of higher resilience in the eastern coastal areas and the southern and northern extremities, with lower resilience in the central region. Our findings underscore the significance of understanding regional variations in drought resilience to inform targeted and efficient policy interventions.