Ecological Projects Highly Affect Ecosystem Resistance and Resilience to Drought Stress: Evidence from the Yellow River Basin in China

Drought is a prevalent natural driver affecting ecosystem health and sustainability, which in turn are being reshaped by ecological projects. However, the effectiveness of ecological projects in mitigating drought ’;s effects on ecosystems remains incompletely assessed. Focusing on ecosystem resistance and resilience, the response of the ecosystem driven by projects to drought in the context of global warming is explored. The results indicated that fractional vegetation cover (FVC) increased across 50.47% of the Yellow River Basin (YRB), primarily driven by land cover changes due to ecological projects. However, ecosystem resistance and resilience to drought did not necessarily increase with the number of projects. Ecosystems showed higher drought resistance (about 0.66) and resilience (maximum drought intensity close to 3.0) when 2 or 3 projects were implemented. The ecosystem drought resistance and resilience of the native ecological land were higher than those of the converted. However, at the late stage of projects, the gap between the converted and the native gradually narrowed. At drought intensities less than 2.0, ecosystem drought resistance and resilience were dominated by trade-offs. Conversely, the synergistic was dominant, and areas of high resistance also showed high resilience. These findings reveal complex interactions between ecological interventions and ecosystem responses under drought stress, challenging the effectiveness of ecological projects. The study highlighted that the important efficacy of ecological projects in vegetation greening masked the reduced ecosystem drought resilience. The patterns observed provide valuable insights for optimizing ecological management strategies, emphasizing the need to balance project intensity with ecological outcomes.