Authors
Abstract
Introduction
Drought is a slow-onset disaster that has economic, social, and environmental consequences. In Iran, drought is a re-current phenomenon. The current drought management strategies in Iran are based on crisis management. For example, when drought becomes visible in different parts of the country, a state of emergency is declared and thus all resources are mobilized in that particular region. However, this type of drought management strategy is proved to be ineffective. Therefore, risk management seems to be the most effective drought management strategies if drought-prone areas in Iran are to recover from the so called man-made disaster. Studies show that a prerequisite to drought risk management is vulnerability assessment of drought affected population. Once vulnerable groups are identified, drought policy-makers can then focus their attention toward most vulnerable areas. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to categorize most vulnerable areas in rural Kermanshah. Specifically, this paper sought to investigate the socio-economic vulnerability among a sample of wheat farmers in Kermanshah, Sahne, Ravansar townships in Kermanshah province. The selection of these townships was based on a recent drought zone classification provided by provincial Meteorological Center in Kermanshah. Moreover, the selected townships were severely affected by drought during the year 2006-2008. In addition, three drought intensity was identified as "Very high drought intensity", extremely high drought intensity", and "critical drought intensity". These intensities were based on mapping concentration from Meteorological Center in Kermanshah Province.
MethodologyIn addition, three drought intensity was identified as "Very high drought intensity", extremely high drought intensity", and "critical drought intensity". These intensities were based on mapping concentration from Meteorological Center in Kermanshah Province.
These intensities were based on mapping concentration from Meteorological Center in Kermanshah Province.
Using multi-stage stratified sampling, 370 farmers across three townships were selected to participate in the study. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed to collect data. A researcher based instrument was designed to collect the data. In order to collect rich data, deep interview was conducted by the researcher. During the interview, retrospective questions were asked so that farmers could go back to the past and gradually see the present with the aim of visioning the future. In order to test for internal validity, a panel of experts from Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development reviewed the research instrument. In addition, extension specialist from Agricultural-Jihad Organization provided further feedback to the questionnaire. Drought vulnerability assessment techniques were reviewed during extensive literature search. Among vulnerability assessment techniques, a formula suggested by Me-Bar and Valdez (2005) was considered appropriate for this study.
Results and discussion
Results revealed that farmers in Ravanasar who experienced highest drought intensities were most vulnerable in socio-economic aspects while farmers in Kermanshah Township with lowest drought intensity were least vulnerable in socio-economic aspects. In addition, Sahne Township experienced drought with intensity somewhere between Ravansar and Kermansha Townships felt in the middle regarding socio-economic vulnerability. The interesting conclusion can be made is that there is a relationship between drought intensity and vulnerability level among study area.The result of this survey study has implications for drought policy-makers as well as drought vulnerability research in Iran. First, identifying vulnerable regions help policy-makers to give priority to vulnerable groups when planning for drought mitigations. Furthermore, an up-to-date vulnerability assessment assists extension agents to plan more effective content for their educational program. In addition, risk management becomes a dominant strategy for managing drought impacts. Unlike crisis management, risk management alleviates the harmful effect of drought more effectively. The result of this study has also implications for drought vulnerability literature. Most drought studies have focused more on impact of drought with less attention being paid on vulnerability assessment. By using the formula proposed in this study, it is hoped that more drought researchers use this formula which in turn adds to external validity of the formula.
Findings
This study had its limitations too. For example, vulnerability is a social concept that varies from context to context. A farmer who buys crop insurance to cover the losses due to drought may feel less vulnerable in one area than a farmer in another area with the same insurance coverage. For this reason, one needs to be more cautious when generalizing the findings of this study to a larger population. Another limitation worth mentioning is getting farmers to respond to retrospective questionnaires like the one used in this study. Farmers are reluctant in providing answers to events at have occurred in the past. For this reason, it is suggested that interviewers spend more time with farmers and be patient when dealing with retrospective studies.
Keywords
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