Investigating ecological network resilience to cascading failures in drylands under multi-hazard attack simulations: A case study of the northern slope area of the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang, China
- 1School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
- 2School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China; Corresponding author at: No. 35, Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing, China.
- 3School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China; School of Landscape Architecture and Art Design, Hunan Agricultural University, Hunan 410128, China
Abstract
Ecological networks in arid regions face dual pressures from climate-driven hazards and inherent fragility. Traditional purely topological resilience assessments are inadequate under complex disturbances. Hence, we developed a “topology-hazard” coupled simulation framework, within which we used circuit theory to construct the ecological network and Python NetworkX to conduct node-removal attack simulations, and then employed random forest to identify the dominant drivers of resilience decay. Results show that: (1) the network comprises 141 ecological sources and 344 corridors, with high-importance nodes clustered in the southern Tianshan and core ecological source areas to the west and northeast, forming dual vulnerable zones highly susceptible to cascading failures; (2) topology-targeted attacks have a much lower collapse threshold (40.9%) than hazard-topology coupled attacks (74.5%), indicating that purely topological approaches underestimate resilience under simulated scenarios; (3) low-temperature stress yields the lowest collapse threshold (84.7%), whereas compound hazard stress yields the highest (98.5%), indicating that hazard action modes modulate resilience responses; (4) network density decay contributes 53.2% of resilience decline and transmissibility decay 26.3%, together accounting for 79.5% and confirming density loss as the dominant driver. Based on these findings, we propose a three-tier protection strategy that prioritizes “dual vulnerable units” to enable precise resource allocation for multi-hazard collaborative prevention and network optimization. This study innovatively constructs a “topology-hazard” coupled simulation framework, which advances quantitative resilience assessment for arid regions and offers a practical pathway for multi-hazard collaborative prevention and ecological network optimization.
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BibTeX
@article{huang2026investigating,
title = {{Investigating ecological network resilience to cascading failures in drylands under multi-hazard attack simulations: A case study of the northern slope area of the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang, China}},
author = {Juqing Huang and Chi Li and Yini Zhu},
journal = {Ecological Indicators},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.115472},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.115472},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Investigating ecological network resilience to cascading failures in drylands under multi-hazard attack simulations: A case study of the northern slope area of the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang, China
AU - Juqing Huang
AU - Chi Li
AU - Yini Zhu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
JO - Ecological Indicators
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.115472
UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2026.115472
AB - Ecological networks in arid regions face dual pressures from climate-driven hazards and inherent fragility. Traditional purely topological resilience assessments are inadequate under complex disturbances. Hence, we developed a “topology-hazard” coupled simulation framework, within which we used circuit theory to construct the ecological network and Python NetworkX to conduct node-removal attack simulations, and then employed random forest to identify the dominant drivers of resilience decay. Results show that: (1) the network comprises 141 ecological sources and 344 corridors, with high-importance nodes clustered in the southern Tianshan and core ecological source areas to the west and northeast, forming dual vulnerable zones highly susceptible to cascading failures; (2) topology-targeted attacks have a much lower collapse threshold (40.9%) than hazard-topology coupled attacks (74.5%), indicating that purely topological approaches underestimate resilience under simulated scenarios; (3) low-temperature stress yields the lowest collapse threshold (84.7%), whereas compound hazard stress yields the highest (98.5%), indicating that hazard action modes modulate resilience responses; (4) network density decay contributes 53.2% of resilience decline and transmissibility decay 26.3%, together accounting for 79.5% and confirming density loss as the dominant driver. Based on these findings, we propose a three-tier protection strategy that prioritizes “dual vulnerable units” to enable precise resource allocation for multi-hazard collaborative prevention and network optimization. This study innovatively constructs a “topology-hazard” coupled simulation framework, which advances quantitative resilience assessment for arid regions and offers a practical pathway for multi-hazard collaborative prevention and ecological network optimization.
SN - 1470-160X
SN - 1872-7034
ER -