The effectiveness of drought adaptation strategies in explaining the livability of Iranian rural households

Abstract

Rural areas, where most people depend on agriculture, are extremely vulnerable to the drought that destroys agriculture, depopulates villages, and drastically reduces rural household livability (RHL). However, previous studies tended to focus on the adoption of drought adaptation strategies without defining and prioritizing their effectiveness to improve RHL. This study aimed to fill this gap in previous research by evaluating drought adaptation strategies' effectiveness to explain RHL in Iran. The participants of the study were all rural households in Hindijan city, Khuzestan province (southwest of Iran). To evaluate the adaptation strategies at RHL level, 42 strategies were classified into six categories (farm management, crop management, financial management, irrigation and water management, social activities and physical infrastructure management). According to the results, the studied rural households in southwestern Iran had low livability. The results also showed that the six adaptation categories explained 64.2% of the variance in RHL under drought conditions, which is quite a significant level. The most important adaptation classes under drought conditions were farming strategies and crop management. Overall, these results can be used to improve RHL and drought management for policymakers in this area.