The contribution of a catchment-scale advice network to successful agricultural drought adaptation in Northern Thailand

Abstract

The intensification of drought affects agricultural production, leading to economic losses, environmental degradation and social impacts. To move toward more resilient system configurations requires understanding the processes that shape farmers' adaptation amidst complex institutional contexts. Social networks are an important part of collective action for supporting adaptive capacity and there are continuing calls to strengthen network connectivity for agricultural governance under the impacts of climate change. Through a survey of 176 farmers in northern Thailand, we explore the extent to which the characteristics of information shared in a catchment advice network are associated with adaptations. Statistical analyses reveal the perceived efficacy of communications as well as farmers’ relative closeness in the advice network to be positively associated with adaptation to drought. We identify a capacity for local actors to bridge information bottlenecks in the network and opportunities for institutions to enhance their dissemination of information to reach less networked farmers. We find that not all adaptations are perceived as effective against future drought and infer opportunities to support engagement with extension services, encourage the sharing of local knowledge and experience and devise policy and interventions to strengthen advice networks for more resilient agricultural systems. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue ‘Drought risk in the Anthropocene’.

Meteorological and Agricultural Drought Risk Assessment via Kaplan–Meier Survivability Estimator

“…While the drought indicators may define the states of the hydrologic systems, drought risk assessment is the crucial step for informed decision-making [19], targeting drought interventions [20], enhanced preparedness [21], the resilience of the hydrologic systems [22], risk reduction and cost-benefit analysis [23], and sustainable development and climate change adaptation [24]. However, defining drought risk is an abundantly discussed topic, as there are newly introduced concepts such as critical drought severity, singular drought, and within-period drought [25].…”

Meteorological and Agricultural Drought Risk Assessment via Kaplan-Meier Survivability Estimator

“…While the drought indicators may define the states of the hydrologic systems, drought risk assessment is the crucial step for informed decision-making [17], targeting drought interventions [18], enhanced preparedness [19], resilience of the hydrologic systems [20], risk reduction and cost-benefit analysis [21], and sustainable development and climate change adaptation [22]. However, defining drought risk is an abundantly discussed topic, as there are newly introduced concepts such as critical drought severity, singular drought, and within-period drought [23].…”

Drought risk in the Anthropocene

“…Increasing computational resources are enabling climatic, hydrological and water resource systems modelling on scales that were hitherto considered to be infeasible-for example the paper by Murgatroyd et al [10] applies water resource system simulation modelling, driven by more than 9000 years of synthetic daily climate data to analyse water supply shortages on an unprecedented national scale. The paper by Goodwin et al (The contribution of a catchment-scale advice network to successful agricultural drought adaptation in Northern Thailand) [13] reports on lessons learnt from social network analysis, applied to data gathered from an extensive on-theground survey of farmers, in guiding ways forward for improved adaptation to foster improved agricultural drought resilience in the region.…”

“…The paper by Goodwin et al . (The contribution of a catchment-scale advice network to successful agricultural drought adaptation in Northern Thailand) [ 13 ] reports on lessons learnt from social network analysis, applied to data gathered from an extensive on-the-ground survey of farmers, in guiding ways forward for improved adaptation to foster improved agricultural drought resilience in the region.…”