Assessment of Vulnerability Due to Agricultural Drought using Multi-criteria Decision Making System (Case Study: Ardakan City)

The severe and widespread droughts in Ardakan, especially in recent years, have added to the livelihoods of farmers and villagers and have caused irreparable damage to the economy of the city. The present study was conducted to investigate the drought vulnerability or zoning in order to implement and implement comprehensive drought management in Ardakan. In this study, the effective factors that affect the drought vulnerability of the study area were transformed into information layers and then the relevant classifications were made. Then, the layers created in terms of importance in agricultural drought vulnerability were prepared using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (GIS) and weighted maps (GIS) maps of each layer of information in the Model (AHP) Was. Finally, the aforementioned environmental maps (GIS) are integrated and finally, the areas of the study area are classified into five classes of agricultural drought vulnerability (very severe, severe, moderate, low, very low) as the final damage map. Agricultural drought susceptibility of Ardakan city was classified. The results showed that the garden lands with an area of ​​1485.63 hectares were located in high drought class and less area in other drought classes. Most of the agricultural land with an area of ​​4558.59 ha was also in high drought class. Also, in terms of topography status, less than 1% of the lands and agricultural lands occupy the highest area of ​​29.62 square kilometers in the most vulnerable class. Also the area located on slopes of 1 to 2 and 2 to 5% in the next rank (13.68 and 2.17 sq km) are in high drought class. The results showed that the most agricultural drought vulnerability was related to central part of Ardakan and parts of Kharanagh. Ardakan, Ahmadabad and Torkabad village in the central part of the country are in the class of agricultural vulnerability. The village of Chah Afzal is also in a very vulnerable agricultural class. The villages of Aghda are divided into low and very low clusters. The results also indicate the importance of the topography of the region, especially the slope parameter in the impact of drought.