Preface to Drought Risk Management to Reflect Changing Meteorological Conditions

Drought is one of the main extreme meteorological and hydrological phenomena which influence both the functioning of ecosystems and many important sectors of human economic activity [...]

Regional Agricultural Drought Risk Assessment Method Based on Risk Transforming Process

Drought risk management can effectively reduce drought losses and improve drought resistance capability, of which drought risk assessment is the core issue. This study evaluated the agricultural drought risk in Huaibei Plain of Anhui Province in China by the approach of constructing drought loss risk curves and risk distribution maps. The results showed that: 1) The drought events that occurred in northern regions (Huaibei and Suzhou) were with the characteristics of high-frequency and low-intensity, while in southern regions (Huainan and Bengbu), the occurring characteristics were low-frequency, high-intensity, and long-duration. 2) Without irrigation, Fuyang was the high-risk region with more than 80% potential yield loss rate, while Huainan was the relatively low-risk area with a potential yield loss of 50%. 3) Irrigation had a significant effect on reducing drought risk loss, while the efficiency was influenced by the spatio-temporal distribution of precipitation. The irrigation scheme in study area still remains to be optimized based on the characteristics of precipitation and crop growth. This study established and practiced a quantitative framework for regional drought risk assessment by creating drought risk curves and risk maps, which have significant value in improving the regional agricultural drought risk management level.

River Re-naturalization - a Nature-based Solution for Climate Change in Urban Areas

The subject of the article is river management and their reconstruction in connection with the need to adapt urban areas to climate change. The article presents a fragment of a wider research. The aim of the study is to identify and indicate the main directions of activities undertaken in the field of river reconstruction, based on the analysis of documents and literature on the subject. The case study of the Wandle River - one of the tributaries of the Thames, running through heavily urbanized areas in London, is an example of the restoration of the river. In this case, the use of natural solutions improved: flood and drought risk management, stormwater retention, inhabitants' access to the river and biodiversity of natural habitats associated with the river.

Lessons from the 2018–2019 European droughts: A collective need for unifying drought risk management

Drought events and their impacts vary spatially and temporally due to diverse pedo-climatic and hydrologic conditions, as well as variations in exposure and vulnerability, such as demographics and response actions. While hazardous severity and frequency of past drought events have been studied in detail, little is known about the effect of drought management strategies on the actual impacts, and how the hazard is perceived by relevant stakeholders for inducing action. In a continental study, we characterised and assessed the impacts and the perceptions of two recent drought events (2018 and 2019) in Europe and examined the relationship between management strategies and drought perception, hazard and impacts. The study was based on a pan-European survey involving national representatives from 28 countries and relevant stakeholders responding to a standard questionnaire. The survey focused on collecting information on stakeholders’ perceptions of drought, impacts on water resources and beyond, water availability and current drought management strategies at national and regional scales. The survey results were compared with the actual drought hazard information registered by the European Drought Observatory (EDO) for 2018 and 2019. The results highlighted high diversity in drought perceptions across different countries and in values of implemented drought management strategies to alleviate impacts by increasing national and sub-national awareness and resilience. The study concludes with an urgent need to further reduce drought impacts by constructing and implementing a European macro-level drought governance approach, such as a directive, which would strengthen national drought management and lessen harm to human and natural potentials.

Research on Agricultural Drought Risk Measurement Based on Bayes Hybrid Model

The development of agricultural economy depends to a large extent on the drought. It is necessary to accurately analyze the current drought risk in order to formulate a more reliable drought risk management strategy and reduce the impact of disasters on the development of the agricultural economy. In order to improve the level of drought risk measurement, this paper selects VaR as the measurement tool, and proposes a mixed distribution model research. Use this model to fit the distribution of drought loss rate, and measure the drought risk by estimating VaR. Among them, the mixed distribution model is mainly composed of two parts, namely GPD and conventional distribution. The former is used to characterize the risk tail. Considering the difficulty of selecting the GPD distribution threshold, this paper introduces the Bayes calculation method to optimize, forming a Bayes hybrid model, including Norm-GDP model and Gamma-GPD model. The application results show that the fitting results generated by the Norm-GDP model application have a better distribution of drought loss rates, and the VaR estimation results are more reliable. Taking 10-year, 20-year, and 100-year disasters as examples, the estimated drought loss rate is 9.46%, 11.05%, and 30.22%. The generation of these metric values can provide a reference for my country’s agricultural drought risk management.

Decision spaces in agricultural risk management: a mental model study of Austrian crop farmers

Drought has become a dominant climate risk both around the world and in Europe, adding to the already challenging task of farming and governing the agricultural sector under climate change. Drought risk management is extremely complex. Apart from irrigation, most drought risk management options have more than one goal and may potentially have negative trade-offs with other risk management objectives. Moreover, government regulations and market mechanisms influence farmers’ decision-making. However, previous studies, both in developed and in developing countries, have predominantly focused on attitudinal and structural influencing factors on farmers’ risk management behavior. In this paper, we comprehensively investigate farmers’ decision spaces with respect to drought risk management. We address two applied research questions: (1) What are farmers’ preferred drought risk management measures? (2) From a farmer’s perspective, what are the dominant factors influencing drought risk management decisions? We find that farmers primarily think of production-based rather than financial measures with respect to drought risk management. At the same time, natural and technical constraints and enabling factors dominate their mental decision space, followed by public and private institutional aspects. This research provides a basis for the design of integrated and holistic drought risk management policy and the drought risk governance needed for sustainable use of land and water resources such as needed to address systemic risks and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover, we introduce a novel approach using mental models extracted from interviews to explore cognitive representations of farmers' decision spaces. This approach has the potential to complement mainstream research using standardized surveys and behavioral models to analyze drivers of risk management.