Agricultural Drought Risk Assessment: A Spatial Analysis of Hazard, Exposure, and Vulnerability in Zacatecas, Mexico

Abstract

Drought is one of the major threats to water and food security in many regions around the world. The present study focuses on the evaluation of agricultural drought risk from an integrated perspective, that is, emphasizing the combined role of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability to drought. For this purpose, we used the Mexican state of Zacatecas as a case study. This state is one of the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of agricultural drought in the country. The proposed method includes three stages: first, we analyzed the risk of agricultural drought at the municipal scale using the FAO Agricultural Stress Index System (ASIS) in its country version (Country-Level ASIS) and also determined a Drought Hazard Index (DHI). Subsequently, we conducted a municipal assessment of exposure and vulnerability to drought based on a set of socioeconomic and environmental indicators, which we combined using an analytical procedure to generate the Drought Exposure Index (DEI) and the Drought Vulnerability Index (DVI). Finally, we determined a Drought Risk Index (DRI) based on a weighted addition of the hazard, exposure, and vulnerability indices. Results showed that 32% of the state’s municipalities are at high and very high risk of agricultural drought; these municipalities are located mainly in the center and north of the state, where 75.8% of agriculture is rainfed, 63.6% of production units are located, and 67.4% of the state’s population depends on agricultural activity. These results are in general agreement with those obtained by other studies analyzing drought in the state of Zacatecas using different meteorological drought indices, and the results are also largely in line with official data on agricultural surfaces affected by drought in this state. The generated maps can help stakeholders and public policymakers to guide investments and actions aimed at reducing vulnerability to and risk of agricultural drought. The method described can also be applied to other Mexican states or adapted for use in other states or countries around the world.

Drought risk for agricultural systems in South Africa: Drivers, spatial patterns, and implications for drought risk management

“…Efforts to assess drought risk for agricultural systems at sub-national level for specifics regions in the world have increased over the past years (Chen et al, 2017;Deng et al, 2018;Han et al, 2016;Kamruzzaman et al, 2018;Ortega-Gaucin et al, 2021;Pei et al, 2018;Zeng et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2011); however, none of these assessments considered the inherent differences between irrigated and rainfed cropping systems. Frischen et al (2020) analysed drought risk for irrigated and rainfed systems at the sub-national scale in Zimbabwe, however, the only differentiation in the methodology for each cropping system was considered at the exposure component while the hazard and vulnerability indicators were the same for both systems.…”

State-Level Multidimensional Agricultural Drought Susceptibility and Risk Assessment for Agriculturally Prominent Areas

“…They chose global agricultural cultivation regions as the study area and identified six main crops as the hazards-affected body of agricultural drought. Another drought vulnerability index for Zacatecas was developed by Ortega-Gaucin et al (2021) based on a collection of socioeconomic and environmental parameters and utilizing sensitivity and adaptive capacity indices. To assess the agricultural drought susceptibility of Yunnan Province in China, Wu et al (2017b) developed a comprehensive approach based on a vulnerability scoping diagram (VSD) model that emphasizes the human-land link by considering both natural circumstances and human activities.…”