In the past five years, an international team has been working towards improved detection, characterization and modeling of abrupt changes in dryland ecosystem functioning, EF. This paper collects the recent advances and lessons learnt from the U-TURN project (Belspo SR/00/339, SR/00/366). Specifically abrupt changes in EF were mapped and categorized over global drylands; new 30m resolution time series of land cover maps and cover fractions were created, validated and released open access for the Sahel region; and new physically-based insights into dryland vegetation response to extreme rainfall were derived based on dryland optimized LPJ-GUESS simulations.