Developing a Framework for Agricultural Drought Risk Assessment for Rainfed Wheat

Agriculture, particularly rainfed agriculture, is the first sector being affected by drought; hence, evaluation of the agricultural drought risk is critically important for drought risk management. The objective of this paper is, therefore, to develop a systematic framework and realistic model for accurately quantifying agricultural drought risk with the focus on rainfed wheat. The proposed framework quantifies the agricultural risk based on the hazard and vulnerability levels for different stages of crop growth. To quantify the drought severity, we have employed Standardized Evapotranspiration and Precipitation Index (SEPI) as a drought index. On the other hand, to determine the drought effect on yield performance, Aquacrop model is adopted for different stages of crop growth to evaluate the yield lost due to the drought. For the vulnerability, fuzzy logic techniques are employed. The proposed framework is evaluated for the Sisab Rainfed Research Station in Northern Khorasan, Iran, using the 30-years (1980 to 2011) meteorological data. For this case, vulnerability, as a dimension less quantity, was calculated as 0.6163 and the drought risk level for rainfed wheat in Sisab Station was calculated as 0.3684 ton/acres. The developed framework can be used for systematic risk management to reduce the impact of drought effects as well as calculating agricultural insurance rates for droughty situations.