Regional Analysis of Prone Drought Areas under Future Climate Change Scenarios: Case Study Agropolitan of Malang District

Abstract

Global climate change challenges livelihoods across the globe concerning its potential impacts. Consequently, climate change adaptation (CCA) strategies should be devised to minimize its negative and maximize its positive impacts. In response to the needs for developing CCA strategies, climate risk assessment should be conducted as an approach to identify contributed factors to the climate risks in a region with which the adaptation strategies can be devised. This study focused on modeling prone areas to drought over a specialized area called Agropolitan located in Malang district. The model was developed based on the concept of drought in combination with spatial analysis. The model includes climate component (i.e., rainfall and evapotranspiration) and biophysical component (i.e., land cover/use, green open space, slope/elevation). The regional climate data for the baseline and future condition were processed using the gridded datasets of WorldClim, which also included the outputs of six global climate models, namely: BCC, CCCMA, CSIRO, GISS, MIROC and NCAR, for projecting future climate of the study region. The analysis shows that prone areas to drought in Malang district was projected to be larger under future climate scenarios. The expanded prone areas were Kalipare sub-district and Pagak sub-district, which prone areas were expanded towards to the south. For the sub-districts of Donomulyo, Bantur, Singosari, and Gedangan, the prone areas were expanded towards to the north. The prone areas of drought in Poncokusumo sub-district remained constant. The prone areas showed within the Agropolitan areas of Poncokusumo were in the villages of Ngadas, Gubukklakah, Pajaran, Argosuko, Ngebruk and Jambesari, and were projected to expand under future climate scenarios. This assessment was an essential step for further study focusing on defining proper CCA strategies for the study region.