Spatial heterogeneity and environmental drivers of drought vulnerability in the Yangtze River Basin

作者：Yuting Yang, Yunfei Feng, Xie He, Meng Li · 发表于：Ecological Indicators · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.114246 · 被引用次数：11 · 研究领域：Hydrology and Drought Analysis、Climate change impacts on agriculture、Climate variability and models

• Assessed drought vulnerability in the Yangtze Basin under the IPCC risk framework. • Resilience dominates over exposure and sensitivity in shaping vulnerability patterns. • Key drivers (e.g., altitude, biodiversity) show non-linear effects and ecological thresholds. • Promoting ecosystem resilience is vital for long-term drought risk reduction strategies. Drought-induced ecological vulnerability is intensifying under global climate change, threatening ecosystem stability and function. Using the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) as a case study, we constructed a Drought Vulnerability Index integrating exposure, sensitivity, and resilience—three core dimensions defined in the IPCC framework. Exposure was represented by drought severity and duration, while sensitivity and resilience were derived from autoregressive modeling of vegetation dynamics using vegetation and climate data from 2001 to 2023. We employed XGBoost with SHAP analysis to disentangle the drivers of spatial heterogeneity. Results reveal strong spatial contrasts: the central-northern YRB shows the highest vulnerability due to concurrent high exposure and sensitivity with low resilience, whereas the western highlands exhibit comparatively low vulnerability despite high exposure, supported by stronger resilience. Quantitative analysis confirms resilience as the dominant determinant of vulnerability, with over 65 % of vegetated pixels showing a significant negative correlation (R < –0.8, p < 0.05) between resilience and v...