Evolutionary Characteristics and Trade-Offs’ Development of Social–Ecological Production Landscapes in the Loess Plateau Region from a Resilience Point of View: A Case Study in Mizhi County, China

Social-ecological production landscape resilience (SELPR) is a significant representation of the continuous supply capacity of landscape services. It is a quantitative assessment of the spatial-temporal evolution of SELPR under internal and external disturbances that provides a scientific basis for regional ecological environments and socio–economic development. Taking Mizhi County for the study of the Loess Plateau region, a three-dimensional (social system, ecosystem, and production system) SELPR evaluation framework was constructed. Data integration was performed using the watershed as the evaluation unit. This study quantitatively evaluated the spatial–temporal differentiation of the social–ecological production landscape (SELPs) subsystem’s resilience and the total SELPR in the study area and classified the areas from the three-system resilience combination level to achieve regional development trade-offs. The results were as follows: (1) In 2009–2018, the change in the social–ecological production landscapes pattern in Mizhi County showed a significant reduction in agricultural production landscapes, relatively stable social living landscapes, and an increase in ecological landscapes; (2) in 2009–2018, the SELPR increased by 12.38%. The spatial distribution of resilience was significantly different, showing a distribution pattern of high central and low surrounding areas; (3) the county’s watershed development zones were divided into five partitions: synergistic promotion areas, ecological restoration areas, social development areas, production optimization areas, and comprehensive remediation areas. The five types of zones have a certain agglomeration effect. In addition, the main obstacle factors affecting the SELPR of each zone are quite different. The key issues and development directions of different types of watersheds are also proposed in this paper.