Integrated risk assessment for agricultural drought and flood disasters based on entropy information diffusion theory in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, China

Abstract

In the context of global climate change, catastrophic events associated with extreme weather are increasing, especially droughts and floods. Assessing agricultural drought and flood risks is of great significance in formulating disaster prevention and increasing farmers' income. In this paper, the new method combining multi-index comprehensive evaluation with entropy information diffusion model is used to assess the risk of agricultural drought and flood disasters in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and relevant policy recommendations are proposed based on the assessment results. The method considers the effects of natural, economic and social factors on disasters while solving the problem of insufficient information and visualizing disaster risk in the region. The assessment results show that, first of all, the research area is threatened by agricultural drought and flood, and the threat of flooding is greater than the threat of drought. Second, with the change of disaster intensity, the risk characteristics of drought and flood disasters are different. Third, the cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River are more vulnerable to disasters than the cities in the lower reaches, and the drought in the study area has become an agricultural threat that cannot be ignored. Based on the model of solving the problem of insufficient information and the consideration of comprehensive disaster factors, the assessment of disaster risk can more intuitively and comprehensively reflect the laws and characteristics of disasters, and is of great significance for the implementation of disaster prevention and mitigation in the region.