Under the influence of climate change and continuous vegetation resilience, the characteristics of underlying surface in semi-arid basins in northern China changed significantly, and the occurrence of water resources has been greatly affected, which aggravates the dynamic changes of vegetation and leads to the continuous changes of water resources and vegetation in the basin. Whether the water resources and vegetation in the basin can be sustainable has become the focus and difficulty of current research. Ecohydrological resilience has become an important method to quantitatively reveal the synergistic mechanism of water resources and vegetation in watersheds by describing the ability of watersheds to maintain the stability of ecohydrological structure and function after disturbance. However, the existing methods have some deficiencies in the quantitative expression of the sustainable water supply capacity in the basin that characterizes
the steady-state transformation of water resources, the quantification of vegetation viability that reflects the steady-state transformation of vegetation, and the revelation of the synergy mechanism between water resources and vegetation.
In view of the above shortcomings, this study takes the semi-arid Hun river basin with vegetation restoration as the study area. Based on the systematic analysis of the variation of meteorological, hydrological and vegetation factors in the basin in the past 40 years, the dynamic evolution of water resources steady state and vegetation steady state in the study area was revealed by quantitative expression of sustainable water supply capacity and sustainable vegetation growth capacity in the basin. On this basis, two steady-state variation characteristics were systematically
incorporated into the study of ecohydrological resilience, and a watershed ecohydrological resilience quantitative model was constructed to reveal the co-evolution of water resources and
vegetation in the study area. The main achievements are as follows:
(1) Through data collection and processing, the temporal and spatial variation characteristics of meteorological, vegetation, hydrology and water resources in the basin were systematically
analyzed. The results showed that in the past 40 years, the climate of the basin was warm and humid with a significant increase in temperature, and a slow increase in precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. The water constraint effect in the forest area was smaller than that in the grass area. Under the influence of large-scale afforestation, the vegetation land in the basin became significantly green after 2000, and the forest coverage expanded significantly. The runoff of the whole basin showed a decreasing trend, but it has been increasing slowly since 2000. The surface runoff and net increment of soil water content were the main components that determines the spatial and temporal difference of water resources in the basin. The growth rate of shallow groundwater recharge was significantly higher than that of other components, but its content was much smaller than that of other components. This difference is related to the adaptability of water resources components to environmental changes.
(2) Under the influence of increased precipitation and dense forest and grass coverage, the sustainable water supply capacity in the basin improved since 2000. However, due to the lack of comprehensive consideration of the matching relationship between supply and demand of water
resources, the shortage of available water resources in most vegetation restoration areas has intensified, resulting in the sustainable water supply capacity in the basin decreasing from Class IV to Class III, and the interference of water resources from the rapid recovery of steady state to the reluctant recovery of steady state.The correlation between the fitness of water resources
components to environmental changes and the sustainable water supply capacity in the basin showed that surface runoff and net increment of soil water content were the key components affecting the temporal trend of vegetation available water resources in the basin. Although the vegetation available water resources increased during the changing period (2000-2020), which was 9.33 % higher than the baseline period (1982-1999), its conversion rate only increased by 1.94 %. Surface runoff, interflow and net increment of soil water content in different combinations became the main components of the spatial variation of vegetation available water resources in the basin. Since 2000, the more abundant vegetation available water resources have been expanding to the northwest of Qingshuihe County, where the grassland has become green obviously, and the conversion rate was as high as 79 %, and the scarce vegetation available water resources increased significantly in the west and east of Helingeer County and the southeast of Youyu County. The net increment of soil water content was the dominant factor affecting the spatial difference of vegetation available water resources in the basin.
(3) The vegetation in the watershed suffered from climate drying and water deficit pressure during the changing period decreased at a rate of 0.27/10a and 0.3/10a, respectively, which promoted the degradation of vegetation growth function, and the vegetation water deficit pressure in the forest restoration area of the basin decreased with the increase of soil water storage capacity. Affected by the increase of precipitation and the increase of forest and grass cover, the vegetation sustainable growth ability in the basin increased from class II to class IV, and the vegetation steady
state was improved from unable to recover to recover quickly after being disturbed, especially in the dense forest area in the eastern part of the basin. Vegetation water deficit pressure was the main
interference factor affecting the steady-state change of vegetation in the basin. Since 2000, the interference factors affecting the steady-state change of vegetation in the eastern and northern
regions of the basin changed from dry climate to vegetation water deficit pressure, and the steadystate recovery ability of vegetation in the eastern region of forest land expansion was increasing
with the decrease of vegetation water deficit pressure.
(4) The average annual ecohydrological resilience of the basin during the changing period increased by 11.74 % compared with the baseline period. However, under the influence of the continuous decrease of the combined effect of ecohydrological anti-interference (10.71 %) and the continuous decrease of the improvement effect of human intervention (19.46%), the
ecohydrological resilience of the basin decreased from Class IV fluctuation to Class III (24.26 %) during the change period, and the steady state of water resources and vegetation in the basin
recovered from rapid synergistic recovery to reluctant recovery. Although the level of ecohydrological resilience in the areas with obvious forest and grass restoration in the basin increased from class I and class II in the baseline period to class III and class IV in the changing period, most areas were in the lower class III. The ecohydrological resilience of the grassland restoration area decreased with the decrease of the combined effect of ecohydrological antiinterference, and it is urgent to strengthen the improvement of the grassland ecological environment. The ecohydrological resilience of the forest restoration area increased (decreased) with the improvement (deterioration) of the ecohydrological anti-interference synergy, and decreased with the weakening of the improvement effect of human intervention. It is urgent to rationally plan the planting distance and structure of forest trees. In addition, according to the grade and change trend of ecohydrological resilience in the basin, the spatial pattern of adaptive management types of ecohydrological resilience in the basin was clarified, and the strategy of improving the steady-state synergistic resilience of water resources and vegetation in the basin was proposed according to local conditions.
This paper aims to reveal the synergistic mechanism of water resources and vegetation in the semi-arid basin. Based on the quantitative expression of the sustainable water supply capacity and the sustainable vegetation growth capacity in the basin, the steady-state variation laws of water resources and vegetation in the basin were clarified, and it was systematically incorporated into
the construction of the quantitative model of watershed ecohydrological resilience, so as to quantitatively reveal the synergistic mechanism of water resources and vegetation in the semi-arid basin, and provide scientific basis and technical support for improving the steady-state synergistic recovery ability of water resources and vegetation in the semi-arid basin.