Rural areas play an important role in the energy transition process, and understanding the impact of green innovation on rural habitat system resilience is highly important. Using data from 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2022, this study employs the entropy method to quantify rural habitat system resilience and examines the relationship between green innovation and rural habitat system resilience using a fixed-effects model. The results indicate that for every one-unit increase in green innovation, rural habitat system resilience increases by 0.012–0.018 units. Robustness tests, including replacing the core explanatory variables, introducing a one-period lag for core explanatory variables, and substituting a fixed-effects model with the system GMM model, confirm the reliability of the findings. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that green innovation has the greatest effect on enhancing rural habitat system resilience in China’s central region. Further analysis demonstrates that green innovation indirectly strengthens rural habitat system resilience by increasing public concern about environmental pollution and reinforcing environmental regulation. These findings provide a scientific basis for improving the environmental resilience of rural communities by integrating life, production, and ecological systems through technological innovation in the context of carbon neutrality. They also contribute to the advancement of sustainable development through nature-based solutions.

Monitoring whether metropolitan ecological spaces can sustain ecosystem functions while accommodating urbanization and economic activity is central to sustainability. Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) accounting supports this by translating ecosystem contributions into spatially explicit indicators for assessment and territorial governance. This study developed a multi-temporal, raster-based GEP framework on a common 30 m accounting grid for the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan Urban Agglomeration Green Heart across six observation years from 2000 to 2023. It integrated six regulating services and a tourism-related cultural contribution with Sen’s slope, a supplementary Mann–Kendall test, spatial-consistency and sensitivity analyses, and Geodetector. Total accounted GEP declined by 9.14%. Climate regulation and water conservation remained dominant, while the tourism-related cultural contribution ranked third by 2023. Farmland and forest were the principal land-cover contributors. Positive Sen’s slopes predominated spatially but were mostly weak and non-significant, despite the aggregate decline. Land-cover change and vegetation productivity showed the highest explanatory power. Spatial consistency improved at 500 m, and sensitivity to the 2023 land-cover proxy was limited. Overall, the framework provides a spatial sustainability assessment tool for identifying ecological decline and supporting cross-jurisdictional conservation, ecological compensation, and sustainable territorial governance.