Developing a Socio-Economic Drought Index in the Agricultural Communities (Case Study: Zayandehroud Watershed)

One of the dimensions of sustainable livelihood, especially in rural communities, is to pay attention to the agricultural economy and the amount of income from agricultural products. In the present study, to evaluate the effects of drought on agricultural and rural communities, the Rural Socio-Economic Drought Index has been introduced. The index uses income from cultivated areas, household costs, and the financial ability to deal with the consequences of drought to take into account the Socio-economic conditions of communities in the face of drought. Due to the importance of the Zayandehroud basin as one of the most stressful basins, Isfahan and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari provinces have been selected as the study area. The course of study includes 29 years from 1989-90 to 2016-17. The classification of the Rural Socio-Economic Drought Index was performed by the Jenks natural failure algorithm, and the result was zoning of the region into low to severe crisis based on flexibility and ability to cope with the effects of drought in terms of impact on household income. The results show that Falavarjan, Khomeini Shahr, Isfahan, and Najafabad regions have been in the most critical situation among the 9 regions of the Zayandehrood basin for 18, 15, 12, and 8 years, respectively. The maximum intensity of rural socio-economic drought in Khomeini Shahr and Falavarjan regions was 6.77 and 6.37 units, respectively. The results of the application of this index were in good agreement with the field findings and it is a suitable indicator for assessing socio-economic drought.