Exploring the spatiotemporal dynamics and driving mechanism of cropland ecosystem health: A perspective based on the contributions of climate change and human activities

• Cropland ecosystem health (CEH) framework unites organizational structure, ecosystem services, and environmental quality. • The XGBoost-SHAP model is applied to reveal the driving mechanisms behind CEH. • Human activities have gradually replaced climate change as the primary driver controlling the CEH. • Internal interactions within human activities or climate change drivers outweigh cross-dimensional interactions. Under the combined influence of climate change and human activities, cropland ecosystem health (CEH) faces significant challenges. Understanding spatiotemporal dynamics and driving mechanisms is vital for advancing the national cropland policies that integrates the trinity of quantity, quality, and ecological protection. However, previous studies on CEH assessment often neglected the relationship between natural ecosystems and human activities, as well as the complex nonlinear interactions between climate change and human activities when analyzing driving mechanisms. Based on the traditional Vigor-Organization-Resilience (VOR) model, this study established a CEH Index using a three-dimensional framework of “Organizational Structure-Ecosystem Services-Environmental Quality”, to assess the dynamic evolution of CEH in Anhui Province, China from 2002 to 2022. The extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) combined with SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) was employed to analyze the driving mechanisms underlying this evolution. The research findings are as follows: (1) Temporally, the overall health status of Anhui Province’s cropland ecosystem showed a slight decline during the study period. Specifically, the combined area of cropland rated as Very healthy or Healthy decreased by 7.58 %, while the area classified as Pathological increased by 5.95 %. Other grades of cropland remained relatively stable. (2) Spatially, CEH displayed a pattern characterized by higher values in central regions and lower values at the edges, with deterioration trends from the central and southwestern regions toward the northern and southern areas. This pattern correlates closely with spatial evolution in organizational structure and environmental quality within the cropland ecosystem. (3) Regarding driving mechanisms, the dominant influence on CEH has shifted from climate change factors (e.g., precipitation, temperature) to human activities factors (e.g., cropland density, nighttime light intensity). Notably, the internal interaction among the drivers of human activities or climate change is more pronounced than the common interaction between these two dimensions. This study establishes a theoretical framework for accurately identifying CEH status and its spatiotemporal evolution, thereby contributing to sustainable cropland management.