Investigating the Effects of Drought on Changes in Resilience and Vulnerability of Rural Settlements in Villages of Kavar City, Fars Province

Resilience and vulnerability of Society plays an important role in facing natural hazards. Due to the dependence of the rural economy on agricultural activities, the impact radius of the drought phenomenon is higher in rural areas. The purpose of this research was to assess the resilience and vulnerability of rural households in Kavar city located in Fars province, against the effects of drought with the capital analysis approach including economic, social, environmental, human, physical and political capital.

In order to conduct this research, samples were collected in 44 villages of Kavar city that were directly affected by drought. The statistical population includes 198 people from the local elite, including villagers, the Islamic Council and local trustees. Using Cochran's method, 131 people were selected as a statistical sample. The tools used were questionnaires and interviews. The variables used in this research included 62 samples which were divided into six groups of social, economic, environmental, physical, human and political capital. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a group of experts in natural resources and sociology. The reliability of the research questions was also obtained using Cronbach's alpha. In order to prioritize capitals in terms of importance in the process of resilience and vulnerability of rural settlements against drought, the data obtained from the questionnaires were weighted and prioritized using the AHP method.

According to the research results in the case study, the highest vulnerability and resilience were related to human capital and environmental capital, respectively. Also, the least vulnerability and resilience are related to economic capital and political capital, respectively. The vulnerability of all investigated funds was more than the statistical median of the sample, which shows that the target society has high vulnerability. The capacity of resilience in economic, physical and political capitals was lower than the statistical median of the sample and for social, environmental and human capitals it was more than the statistical median of the sample. The average of the total funds in the region shows that vulnerability is high and resilience is low in this region.

Conclusion and Suggestions :

The results of capital prioritization in terms of importance in the process of resilience and vulnerability of rural settlements against drought using the AHP method showed that environmental, social, human, physical, economic and political capitals in resilience and human, Political, environmental, physical, social and economic capital’s, have the highest to lowest priority in vulnerability. In addition, the results showed that the level of community preparedness is at a low level when drought occurs. The vulnerability index was 3.74 and the resilience index was 2.81, which show that vulnerability is high and resilience is low in this area. It is suggested that the prevailing approach be changed from a weak focus on reducing vulnerability to drought crisis to increasing resilience against this crisis. In this connection, planning should be done in order to strengthen resilience characteristics in societies exposed to drought crisis.