Evaluating the vulnerability of agricultural drought in Hetao Irrigation Area of Inner Mongolia Based on super efficiency DEA

Abstract

Drought vulnerability has become a key point for agricultural sustainable development in such a changing context. In this study, Hetao Irrigation Area which is the major grain-producing area is selected as the research area, where frequent drought threatens food production. Firstly, super efficiency data envelopment analysis (SEDEA) model is used to evaluate the agricultural drought vulnerability of Hetao Irrigation Area from 1997 to 2016. And then the spatial and temporal differences of vulnerability are analyzed. Moran’s I Index is also adopted for further spatial autocorrelation analysis. The results show that the vulnerability decreases with the investment of agricultural science and technology, and the drought vulnerability in different irrigation fields are affected by the irrigation area coverage rate. The drought vulnerability is much higher in the east of Hetao Irrigation Area than that in the west due to the worse water supply in the east. And the vulnerability in Wuyan is the highest due to the largest cropping sown area, while Linhe stays the lower value due to the highest GDP.