The contemporary world is facing an unprecedented intensification of climate change and increased hydrological instability, particularly in the form of persistent droughts. These conditions challenge the stability and resilience of water-dependent social-ecological systems (SES) and the security of local livelihoods. Enhancing the resilience of local communities has become a vital strategy for managing these stresses and ensuring the sustainability of livelihoods. The Taleqan watershed, a strategic mountainous SES in Iran, is impacted by these climatic shifts, making the evaluation of its adaptive capacity against escalating stresses essential. The objective of this mixed-methods (quantitative-qualitative-spatial) research is to conduct a comparative and quantitative-spatial analysis of the impact of hydro-climatic stresses on the spatial differences in the nine resilience components of the SES across the different sub-catchments (Upper, Middle, and Lower) of the Taleqan watershed. The study utilized hydro-climatic data (1997–2017) and the SPI and SDI indices for trend analysis and drought assessment, alongside the SES framework for resilience evaluation across 101 local samples. The hydrological findings indicated the persistence of long-term droughts and spatial variability in their intensity, with Lower Taleqan recording the longest persistence of SDI drought. However, the resilience analysis revealed a spatial paradox: despite facing more severe stress, the Lower Taleqan region demonstrated stronger performance in the transformability components, both social (p = 0.009) and economic (p = 0.024), suggesting that escalating stress has acted as a driver for socio-economic transformation and innovation. Conversely, Upper Taleqan, despite having more available water, showed the weakest performance in infrastructural memory (p = 0.009). The conclusion is that Taleqan's resilience is a spatially heterogeneous phenomenon, necessitating the formulation of place-based policies, strengthening multi-level governance, promoting economic diversification of livelihoods, and developing hydro-social dynamic modeling to enhance the system's adaptive and transformative capacity.