Understanding the complex relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being during the rapid development of urban agglomerations can promote the sustainable development of urban agglomerations. In this paper, the InVEST model and ArcGIS10.2 were used to analyze the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of ecosystem services and human well-being in the Guanzhong Plain urban agglomeration. On this basis, the coupling coordination index is used to reveal the spatiotemporal coupling relationship between them. (1) From 2010 to 2018, the water conservation services, soil conservation services, and carbon sequestration services of the Guanzhong Plain urban agglomeration showed a fluctuating downward trend. The spatial differences of ecosystem services were significant. (2) From 2010 to 2018, human well-being in the Guanzhong Plain urban agglomeration showed a fluctuating downward trend, with a decrease of 17%, and regional differences tended to narrow. (3) The coupling coordination degree between ecosystem services and human well-being has slightly decreased while maintaining the basic coordination state. The results show that there was a significant relationship between the decline of ecosystem services and the rapid development of the Guanzhong Plain urban agglomeration, and policies should be classified according to the coupling coordination types of human well-being and ecosystem services to promote the sustainable development of urban agglomerations.

In the context of global environmental change and continuous urbanization, enhancing urban resilience is an important way to improve urban emergency management capacity and achieve sustainable development of urban systems. It is of great significance to clarify the mechanisms and effects of urban resilience and carry out resilience measurement to improve the level of urban system resilience and alleviate the pressure of environmental disturbances on the stable operation of urban systems. As an important part of the “Belt and Road” Initiative and one of the few leading economic regions in western China, promoting the high-quality development of the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration is of profound significance for strengthening ethnic unity and stabilizing the northwest and southwest regions. Based on the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory and the adaptive cycle model, this study understands urban resilience as the comprehensive result of urban system stability, self-organization, learning adaptability and transformability, constructs a multi-level open index evaluation system, and analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of urban resilience of the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration from the proposed design to the formal planning in 2010–2017. The findings are as follows: (1) Research on the urban resilience of the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration verifies the applicability of the evolutionary urban resilience analysis framework and makes preliminary findings on urban resilience based on CAS theory, which provide a certain theoretical reference for the research on the spatio-temporal evolution of urban resilience. (2) From 2010 to 2017, significant differences are observed between various urban attributes. Resilience exhibits an overall upward trend, and spatial evolution changes from a double core (Lanzhou and Xining) to three cores (Lanzhou, Xining and Haidong) and polycentric modes. (3) Based on urban resilience characteristics and an urban system adaptability cycle model, this paper divides the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration cities into four types (exploitation–reorganization, conservation–release, conservation–exploitation and exploitation), and proposes corresponding adaptive management countermeasures. These could be adopted as a reference to promote the high-quality development of the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration.

Drought has a profound impact on crop yield and the subsistence farming economy in arid and semi-arid lands of developing countries. It creates insecurity in the food supply and livelihood of rural farmers, leading to different livelihood trajectories and transformations. However, a primary challenge is to examine the complexity and location-specificity of drought impact. This study proposes a conceptual framework to understand the integrated drought impact on Yuzhong County in Gansu Province, China. Specifically, the study applies the standardized precipitation index at different time scales to observe drought changes from 1960 to 2017 and estimates the correlation with crop yield. Then, farmers in the northern, central, and southern regions of Yuzhong County were categorized using two-step cluster analysis, based on survey data collected from 1013 interviews conducted in the three regions. The study explores the impact of drought on the livelihood and food security of different clusters of farmers and analyzes their livelihood trajectories and transformations. The results showed that the drastic years with moderate and severe droughts were 1981–1983, 1997, and 2011–2012. Drought was significantly correlated with crop yield, and the effect of SPI12 was more severe. Five clusters of farmers in the southern regions of Yuzhong county were affected by drought with large drought disaster areas and serious economic losses, leading to high rates of affordability deficit and food insecurity, especially in the southern region. As a result, farmers have been adapting their livelihoods to drought, transforming toward mixed livelihoods in the northern region and part-time agricultural livelihoods in the central and southern regions. This study recommends an increase in public investment in water conservancy and irrigation facilities and suggests that locations and policies be utilized to promote the transformation of farmers’ livelihoods to make them more resilient.