## 5 Conclusions  
This study revealed trends in climatic drought and vegetation response characteristics in Xinjiang from 2000 to 2020. Overall, climate drought in Xinjiang showed a slightly worsening trend, especially in the northern R1 and R2 ecological zones, where short-term droughts slightly intensified and long-term droughts significantly increased, suggesting a shift from short- to long-term drought conditions. Conversely, the southern R4 and R5 zones exhibited relatively stable drought conditions, with some alleviation of long-term drought in R5. However, this zone showed considerable interannual climate variability, resulting in some uncertainty in long-term trends.  
In terms of the vegetation response, while the overall NDVI and SIF trends increased, declines were observed in certain densely vegetated zones (such as R1, R2, and R3), suggesting the influence of water stress in these areas. Vegetation responses to climate change vary significantly across regions, with physiological responses in northern Xinjiang being notably stronger than those in the south and physiological responses showing greater sensitivity than structural responses. Zones R1, R2, and R3 in northern Xinjiang were mainly affected by long-term climate change, whereas zones R4 and R5 in southern Xinjiang were more responsive to short-term climate variation. Natural grasslands showed a stronger response to climate change than forests, with structurally greater impacts observed in areas with lower vegetation cover.  
Conceptualization, [PERSON] and J.F.; methodology, [PERSON]; software, [PERSON]; validation, [PERSON], J.F., Z.L. and S.L.; formal analysis, [PERSON]; investigation, [PERSON]; resources, J.F.; data curation, J.H.; writing--original draft preparation, [PERSON]; writing--review and editing, [PERSON] and J.F.; visualization, [PERSON]; supervision, [PERSON] and S.L.; project administration, [PERSON]; funding acquisition, [PERSON] All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
**Funding:** This research was funded by the Key Research and Development Program of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China (2022B03030), and the Third Comprehensive Scientific Expedition to Xinjiang Project (2021 xjkk0305).  
**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are openly available in publicly accessible repositories as follows: Natural Grassland Data: China Multi-Period Land Use Remote Sensing Monitoring Dataset (CNLUCC), available at [[https://www.resdc.cn/](https://www.resdc.cn/)]([https://www.resdc.cn/](https://www.resdc.cn/)) (accessed on 20 October 2024). Natural Forest Data: Sourced from the GUO-LAB Digital Ecosystem Group, accessible at [https://www.3 decology.org/](https://www.3 decology.org/) (accessed on 20 October 2024). SIF Data: Global OCO-2 Sun-Induced Fluorescence (GOSIF) dataset, provided by the Earth Systems Research Center, University of New Hampshire, available at [[http://data.globalecology.unh.edu/data/GOSIF_v2/](http://data.globalecology.unh.edu/data/GOSIF_v2/)]([http://data.globalecology.unh.edu/data/GOSIF_v2/](http://data.globalecology.unh.edu/data/GOSIF_v2/)) (accessed on 20 October 2024). SPEI Data: SPEIbase v2.10, accessible at [[https://spei.csic.es/database.html](https://spei.csic.es/database.html)]([https://spei.csic.es/database.html](https://spei.csic.es/database.html)) (accessed on 20 October 2024). NDVI Data: China Regional 250 m Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) Dataset (2000-2023), available at [[https://data.tpdc.ac.cn/](https://data.tpdc.ac.cn/)]([https://data.tpdc.ac.cn/](https://data.tpdc.ac.cn/)) (accessed on 20 October 2024).  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.