Measuring the Level of Rural Awareness and Knowledge about Drought Crisis Management (Case Study Area: Middle Khaf rural districtof Khaf Township)

IntroductionDoubtless, rural development is a multiple concept and has different dimensionsincludingeconomic, social and cultural (Ghadiri masoum, 2012: 2)and for getting to sustainable rural development considering all environmental, social, cultural, economic, physical, institutional, and managing aspectsis needed(Afrakhteh, 2012: 40). Meanwhile, attending to disasters and crisis that permanently create sudden changes and alterations in rural area is one of the main issues and problems of rural development. Crisis happening affect all parameters of sustainable development;therefore, crisis management has been counted as an essential step of sustainabledevelopment (Firoozi and et al, 2011: 97). In recent years, so many of rural communitiesin our country havefaced withclimaticchanges like earth warming and drought that cause agricultural damages, income decreasing, unemployment, and migration from rural to urban areas for finding job opportunities, or from anoptimistic viewpoint,changing the cultivation and production patternsthat need less irrigation and had increased rural vulnerability and unsustainability against disasters. Necessity of attending to disasters is the undeniable duty of crisis management organizations and foundations. Since the disasters and crisis usually causeto heavy and severe damage in vulnerable environments, in rural settlementswhichare counted as disastrous places, crisisand disasters haveheavy and wide damages (Riahi and et al, 2013: 2). Crisis management, as a practical and scientificexpertise,requiresskills, tools, and different factors whichawareness and knowledge are twoimportant requirements of them. Since in drought crisis, rural communities use different strategies for coping with disasters effects, and based on scientific studies, tact and intelligence chiefs in crisis is only possible through gaining knowledge, this study tries to measure and analyze the rural communities’ awareness and knowledge about drought crisis management a rural area inKhaf township. In this regard, the aims question of this researchis that: how much is the knowledge and awareness of villagers about drought crisis management in case study area?
Material and MethodsThe present study has adescriptive-analyticalapproach and tries to examine and assessing the level of awareness and knowledge among rural householdsaboutdrought risk management in middle Khaf rural districtof Khaf township.This study include twomainsteps: 1) determining the index and indicators formeasuring the crisis management awareness and knowledge among rural people that had been done through archival research, and 2) a field study based on a survey method and collecting datathrough questionnaire. This researchermade questionnaire contains 64 items withfourdimensionsabout different aspect of crisis managements that were extracted from theoretical research frameworks. After designing thequestionnaire, gathereddata from 13 rural point as a case study area were analyzed bySPSS. There are 15 rural points invillage case study that two villages have less than20 households and wereexcludedfrom study. The sample size was chosenby Cochran formula and 260 rural households had been determined as the sample size.
Middle Khaf Dehestanliesin central district of Khaf township in Khorasan Razavi province and according to the general population census in 2011, thepopulationwas estimated to be 8537 with 1991 householdsin 15 rural points. This Dehestan is located ineast and northern east ofTaybad Township and southof KhafTownship. Its height above sea level ranges from950 to 1270 meters. Average rainfall in KhafTownship is around 142.2 mm, which is about 83 percent far from world average rainfall,and 35percent from Iran’s average rainfall. Its weather is hyper dry, based on Demarton climatic classification. This Dehestanlike other parts of Khaf Townshiphasfaced withdrought and every year experience many social and economic losses and damagesfrom that.
Results and DiscussionAfter gathering data,statistical methods and examinations had been usedfor dataanalyzing. In first step for analyzing and identifying the current situation of rural awareness about drought crisis management T-test statistical test was used. Based on the gainedresults, awareness and knowledge of rural community about drought management is lowerthan moderate mean (3) in the case study area, especially in twoimportant indicators- resources, namely,reaction provisionand incomereplacement,which werelower than other indicators too. This pointindicates the need to payserious attention to educating therural people as an initial loop during the eventand crisis occurrence and reconstruction. The following results were also gained:• The average of Knowledge and awareness about drought crisis management is generally 2.41 and 2.54 for individuals aged less than 30 years old and over 30 years old. It means that old people are more aware about drought in compare to youngest people.
• The average of crisis management awareness and knowledge for different job, including thefarmers, ranchers, employees, students, and others are 2.43, 2.40, 2.38, 2.37 and 2.37, respectively. This result shows that rural people’s jobs had affected their knowledge and awareness about drought.
• There is a negative meaningful relationship between rural household’s education and crisis management knowledge and awareness for drought. It means that with increasing the level of rural education, their awareness and knowledge about drought management is reduced.
• There isno meaningful relationship between gender and rural knowledge and awareness about drought management.
ConclusionNatural disasters are the main challenge in rural areas and theircontrol is a great purpose of sustainable development. Due to this, rural areas of our country do not have a comprehensive crisis management structure and every year a large number of residents in rural areas suffer from human and financial damages and losses of environmental disasters. As mentioned, awareness and knowledge promotion areimportant factors for coping with natural events damages in rural areas based on community based approaches of rural development. Result of the study shows that drought management awareness and knowledge among rural communities are notin a good and appropriate condition and is less than moderate level (lessthan 3). The result of research indicate the need to improve the awareness and knowledge of villagers and local population as a main stakeholders and actors of the community based approach to crisis management and development. The objective of crisis management knowledge is effortto identify and increase the level of rural awareness about different stages ofcrisis management and the activities thatlocal people should be aware of that, learn from it and act, accordingly. Today, with the emphasis on crisis management views such as social attitudes, many functions have been proposed for crisis managers.Inthe scope of macro space, management has been transferred to local communities whichincreases the need to improve the knowledge and awareness of local communities.