Ecological resilience, the ability of an ecosystem to absorb and adapt to environmental change to maintain its sustainability, was first systematically introduced by the Canadian ecologist C.S. Holling in 1973 and has since rapidly attracted attention and been used across multiple disciplines. In the context of global change, the response of terrestrial ecosystems to increasingly intensifying arid environments, specifically the spatial patterns and evolutionary mechanisms of vegetation ecological resilience under drought stress, has become a core focus of current ecological and ecohydrological research. In recent years, numerous studies have been conducted on the relationship between vegetation change and water stress, enhancing our understanding of this mechanism. However, the interpretation of the ecological resilience of vegetation varies widely and remains controversial, and one of the main reasons for this is that the understanding of the connotations of ecological resilience is not yet unified. To address this issue, we synthesized the views of researchers worldwide and suggested that the analysis of ecological resilience should not only consider the system resistance and recovery capacity under drought events but also the system response and adaptation behavior under changing environments from the perspective of system evolution. These include resistance, recovery, and adaptation, which should be the three most important dimensions for determining ecological resilience. Focusing on these three main dimensions, we reviewed the results of recent research conducted globally and summarized the current understanding of ecological resilience and the key issues to be addressed in terms of spatial patterns, impact mechanisms, and adaptation strategies for ecological resilience. Through an analysis of the concept of ecological resilience and the current state of research, we hope to promote academic discussions on the definition of ecological resilience and its quantitative methods to facilitate an understanding of the evolution of resilience and its underlying mechanisms.