Resilience assessment and spatiotemporal evolution analysis of water resources system in the provinces along the Yellow River

This study focuses on the nine provinces along the Yellow River, and establishes a water resources system resilience evaluation framework consisting of 34 indicators based on a meteorology-hydrology-socioeconomy-ecology-engineering multidimensional system. By applying a TOPSIS for assessing water resources system resilience, that incorporates combination weighting approach based on game theory, this study investigates the spatiotemporal evolution of the water resources system resilience from 2009 to 2022.The resilience of water resources system in the provinces along the Yellow River exhibited an overall fluctuating upward trend. Since 2019, resilience levels generally increased, with the lowest values of 0.36 in 2009 and 2010, and the highest value of 0.59 in 2021. Some provinces, including Shanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai experienced significant fluctuations in resilience due to climate variability and the implementation of local policies, whereas regions such as Shaanxi and Shandong maintained relatively stable resilience levels. From 2009 to 2022, the resilience levels of water resources system in the provinces along the Yellow River were ranked in descending order: Sichuan > Henan > Shaanxi > Inner Mongolia > Qinghai > Shandong > Ningxia > Gansu > Shanxi. Sichuan and Henan achieved Level II (higher resilience), with the rest at Level III (moderate resilience).