Drought risk assessment of China’s mid-season paddy

Abstract

China has the world’s largest population and a large and critically important agricultural sector. Sixty-five percent of the Chinese population lives on paddy rice. However, drought disasters frequently afflict China’s rural population and threate n its food security. It is therefore of paramount importance to assess the drought risk of paddy in China. We establish a quantitative risk assessment model for the drought risk of mid-season paddy and regional-specific vulnerability curves, evaluate the drought risk of mid-season paddy, and compile a series of risk maps. The drought disaster risk rating results indicate that risk is highest in Northeast China, followed by Northwest China, North China, and South China, showing a decreasing trend from north to south. The mid-season paddy area of Northeast China has the highest mean risk index (0.58–0.71), followed by northwestern provinces such as Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang (0.5–0.6), while risk indices in provinces of North China such as Hebei and Shandong range from 0.3–0.5, and the southern provinces show a relatively low level of risk. This article presents the preliminary results of a scientific inquiry on where the high drought risk areas of mid-season paddy are and how high the risk is. These results provide a regional-specific basis for drought risk governance of paddy in China.