If we have a multivariate function f(x,y) where x=x(t,s) and y=y(t,s) are functions of the variables t and s , we have that the partial derivatives
\frac{\partial f}{\partial s}=\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}\frac{\partial x}{\partial s}+\frac{\partial f}{\partial y}\frac{\partial y}{\partial s},and
\frac{\partial f}{\partial t}=\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}\frac{\partial x}{\partial t}+\frac{\partial f}{\partial y}\frac{\partial y}{\partial t}.the gradient of f with respect to t and s (without the explicit unit vector components)
\frac{df}{d(s,t)} = \begin{bmatrix}\frac{\partial f}{\partial x} & \frac{\partial f}{\partial y} \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix}\frac{\partial x}{\partial s} &\frac{\partial x}{\partial t} \\ \frac{\partial y}{\partial s} & \frac{\partial y}{\partial t} \end{bmatrix}.