Development and validation of appropriate indicators to assess the vulnerability of agricultural areas in drought

Although many indicator-based vulnerability assessing tools for agriculture have been developed in the last decades, considerably less effort has been put on their validation. The aim of this study was to identify and validate appropriate indicators to assess the vulnerability of agricultural areas in drought conditions in Golestan province. In the first stage, by examining the literature on vulnerability in drought conditions, 64 indicators in three dimensions of "exposure", "sensitivity" and "adaptability" were developed and selected. In order to be judged, 30 experts were selected from among the faculty members of the Departments of Water Engineering, Agriculture and Plant Breeding, Agricultural Extension and Education and Agricultural Economics, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, and experts from the Water Engineers Company. In order to reach the collective agreement of the sample experts and to determine the validity level of the indicators, the average statistics, standard deviation and coefficient of variation were calculated for each of the indicators. To test the hypothesis that the score of the desired indicators is higher than the average, a sample t-test was used. The results showed that, except for one indicator, all other indicators were suitable by experts to assess the vulnerability of agricultural areas in drought conditions.