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In semi-arid ecosystems annual and intra-annual precipitation variance lead to frequent periods of water scarcity that act as ecological minimums to alter and constrict patterns of primary production. �We use the North American semi-arid sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome as a model system to evaluate long-term soil water dynamics and their spatiotemporal influence on landscape productivity during seasonal drought. �Remote sensing and normalized differenced vegetation index derived from 15,180 Landsat satellite images were used as a proxy to examine soil water availability through shifting vegetative productivity on 600,000 sites from 1984 to 2016. �Evaluations were conducted within a spatial ecohydrologic framework that partitioned the broader biome into regions along gradients of soil water dynamics. �Ecohydrologic sensitivity to annual precipitation variance and geophysical settings were measured within functional soil water pathways; �groundwater�, �pulse-water�, and �irrigation-water� that explained heterogeneity in landscape response. �Despite only a 12% difference in mean annual precipitation and similar evapotranspiration rates, productivity during drought differed by 97% across ecohydrologic regions. �Model results identified divergent ecological trade-offs specific to regions that exploited characteristics of deep soil or pulse soil water dynamics to leverage landscape productivity during drought. �Groundwater systems were least sensitive to precipitation variance and occurred at double the proportional rate (51%) in regions of higher deep soil water potential. �High sensitivity to precipitation change in pulse dominated regions were tempered by rapid productivity response that increased the extent of these sites nine times greater than other regions. �Pulse water sites in some regions offset drought sensitivity using altitudinal shifts and occurred on average 300-400 m above more resilient groundwater sites. �Findings provide new insight to functional mechanisms of drought induced ecological minimums that contribute important context to accelerate adaptation of predicted long-term fluctuations in climatic patterns anticipated to alter water balance across mid-latitude semi-arid regions.