Investigating Pro-Environmental Behaviors and Institutional Drought Management Mechanisms and their Impact on Sustainable Livelihood in Borkhar-Isfahan Region: Application of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT)

Drought is a complex natural catastrophe with no universally accepted definition. Each definition reflects the differences in regions, needs, and disciplinary approaches. Some consider the definition of drought as an agricultural drought that has become a serious threat to food security while deeply affecting production and farmers’ livelihood. Farmers in some regions have greater exposure to drought than others, and farmers in each region face their own unique set of challenges. As a result, coping behaviors and strategies used by different farmers are very different than their risk management. Recent efforts have recognized the importance of applying risk reduction behaviors, both during and after the drought, to prevent environmental problems. It would be necessary to focus on the promotion of appropriate drought management practices among farmers to achieve a more sustainable and environmentally alternative livelihood where pro-environmental behavior is set as a core factor. Thus, when investigating a sustainable alternative livelihood where pro-environmental behavior is set as a core factor, it is necessary to focus on the promotion of drought management practices among smallholder farmers. Further, using institutional drought management mechanisms as effective factors to improve sustainable livelihood under drought is very appropriate.

From a holistic sustainable livelihood perspective, these mechanisms might be divided into three categories: integrated drought risk management, comprehensive reduction of damages, and control the consequences based on indigenous knowledge, that reduce vulnerability and attempt to change the surroundings under drought. Thus, in this study, we aim to use the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to explain farmers’ pro-environmental behavior, and we subsequently apply our conceptualization of the PTM to explain the effects of pro-environmental behavior as well as some institutional management mechanisms to achieve a sustainable livelihood in the Borkhar-Isfahan region of Iran. The PMT, a general theory of persuasive communication that incorporates individual and social factors, provides a set of predictors for human behavior, which balances two main processes, threat appraisal and coping appraisal. The threat appraisal process involves individual assessment of threat levels and includes two constructs: a) perceived severity and b) perceived vulnerability. In this study, perceived severity is conceptualized as the degree to which smallholder farmers perceive the effects of drought. The coping appraisal process also involves individual assessment of internal and external factors and includes three constructs: a) self-efficacy, b) response efficacy, and c) response costs. Farmers perceived self-efficacy have a positive and direct effect on their actual farming and non-farming practices in a drought. Response efficacy refers to an individual's belief; in this case, farmers evaluate the types of adaptive behaviors and various measures to deal with the threat. However, in this study, based on the research framework, farmers’ pro-environmental behaviors are influenced by two threat appraisal factors, and three coping appraisal factors. Furthermore, sustainable alternative livelihood is directly determined by pro-environmental behavior and institutional management mechanisms.This paper specifically focuses on a semi-arid region of Borkhar-Isfahan region of Iran, and smallholder farmers living in Borkhar region are generally some of the most ecologically, socially, and politically marginalized people. The population of this study was comprised of rural smallholder farmers who produce agricultural and horticultural crops under drought between 2018-2020. According to the Isfahan Agriculture-Jahad Organization, there are about 3666 smallholder farmers in the two districts of Borkhar, which consists of 12 villages (N=3666). The study sample consisted of 293 farmers, based on Cochran’s formula, and was selected through stratified random sampling (n=293). Data were collected with a questionnaire consisting of four sections: 1) demographic characteristics, 2) pro-environmental behavior, 3) institutional management mechanisms, and 4) sustainable alternative livelihoods. The sub-scales were developed based on a 5-point Likert scale. The questions of these sections werederived from the research framework, confirmed by the previous studies and then modified to fit the objectives of this study. The questionnaire validity and reliability were measured through a pre-test. Then, descriptive analysis was done using SPSS and to testing the research model, this study also used the partial least squares (PLS) technique of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using Smart-PLS.

Results show that self-efficacy, perceived vulnerability, and response efficacy have significant positive effects on the farmers’ pro-environmental behavior under drought. Moreover, self-efficacy has the greatest direct role in explaining farmers’ pro-environmental behavior. Also, based on confirmatory factor analysis, “ability to implement best practices to improve farm management” accrued the highest loadings and is the main indicator for explaining self-efficacy. Furthermore, the results revealed that perceived vulnerability significantly influenced farmers' pro-environmental behavior. Based on confirmatory factor analysis, “possible threat to food security” is the main indicator for explaining perceived vulnerability. Thus, understanding vulnerability to environmental issues raises farmers’ awareness and attitudes toward prevention effects; therefore, when farmers’ perceptions of vulnerability are very high, it increases the likelihood of an adaptive response. Our results also show that perceived severity and response costs have a significant negative influence on the farmers’ pro-environmental behavior. Threat appraisal is based on weighing the benefits of not engaging in pro-environmental behavior under drought. Thus, the greater the severity of the risk perceived by individuals, the more it reduces the likelihood of drought coping behaviors. Also, the study showed that response costs have a negative effect on pro-environmental behavior. So, whenever response costs decreased, the higher perceived costs of pro-environmental practices reduce the probability of protective behavior. Therefore, when a farmer evaluates the implementation of an environmental behavior as laborious, expensive, unpleasant, time-consuming, he will be reluctant to implement it. The findings further show that farmers' pro-environmental behavior and integrated drought risk management are the main predictors of achieving a sustainable alternative livelihood. Moreover, conservation of natural habitats and biodiversity, and providing the necessary training to increase farmers’ knowledge and skills, were found to be highly important indicators that enhance sustainable livelihood under drought. Therefore, concentrating on efforts and shifting the focus to these indicators lead to increased farmer’s livelihood resilience in the long run.