Urban Resilience Capacity Assessment and Key Factor Contribution Analysis in the Northern Slope of Tianshan Mountains Urban Agglomeration: Based on the XGBoost Model

Abstract

Addressing the issue of ecological vulnerability and against the backdrop of urban expansion in arid regions, this study constructs a composite urban resilience capacity index (CURCI) for the urban agglomeration on the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains and examines its space-time evolution together with the relative contribution of key indicators. The evaluation system was constructed from economic, social, ecological, and infrastructure dimensions. The CRITIC-entropy combined weighting method, TFPW-MK method, standard deviation ellipse, and XGBoost-SHAP model were used to analyze urban resilience capacity from 2005 to 2022. Results show that, temporally, CURCI showed a sustained overall increase. Urumqi City and Karamay City grew relatively fast as dual core cities, while peripheral and county-level cities improved gradually. Spatially, resilience was higher in the north and west and lower in the south and east. High-value areas expanded, low-value areas gradually disappeared, and the resilience centroid point remained near the boundary between Urumqi City and Changji City, with a northwest–southeast orientation. In terms of factor contributions, economic factors contributed most, followed by social and ecological factors. Based on contribution differences, cities were classified into industrial-advantage, ecological-advantage, natural-constraint, and population-pressure types. These findings provide a reference for resilience assessment and differentiated governance in arid-region urban agglomerations.