Quantitative Assessment and Spatial Characteristics of Agricultural Drought Risk in the Jinghe Watershed, Northwestern China
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December, 2011 Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.2 No.4 J. Resour. Ecol. 2011 2(4) 338-344 Article DOI:10.3969/j.issn.1674-764x.2011.04.007 www.jorae.cn Quantitative Assessment and Spatial Characteristics of Agricultural Drought Risk in the Jinghe Watershed, Northwestern China LONG Xin1, 2, ZHEN Lin1, CHENG Shengkui1* and DI Suchuang3 1 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China; 2 Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3 Beijing Hydraulic Research Institute, Beijing 100048, China Abstract: Though drought is a recurrent phenomenon in the Jinghe watershed, very little attention has been paid to drought mitigation and preparedness. This article presents a method for the spatial assessment of agricultural drought risk in the Jinghe watershed of western China at a 1-km grid scale. A conceptual framework, which emphasizes the combined roles of hazard and vulnerability in defining risk, is used. The Z index method in a GIS environment is used to map the spatial extent of drought hazards. The key social and physical factors that define agricultural drought in the context of the Jinghe watershed are indentified and corresponding thematic maps are prepared. Risk is calculated by the integration of hazard and vulnerability. Results show that the risk gradient follows a north-south and west-east tendency and that agricultural droughts pose the highest risk to northern and northwestern sections of the Jinghe watershed. Key words: agricultural drought; natural hazards; vulnerability; risk assessment; Jinghe watershed The average area affected by drought in China is about 1 Introduction 21.593 million ha per year, accounting for 60% of the total Drought is a normal, recurrent feature of climate area affected by all types of meteorological disasters and that affects virtually all countries to some degree. annual grain losses due to drought are up to 10 billion kg The number of drought-induced natural hazards has (Wu et al. 2011). From 1978–2009, data from the China grown significantly since the 1960s, largely as a result statistical yearbook showed that affected area of arable of increasing vulnerability to extended periods of land induced by drought accounted for 77.92% of the total precipitation deficiency rather than because of an increase area affected by all types of meteorological hazards (Fig.1). in the frequency of meteorological droughts. This increase The Jinghe watershed is located in a semi-arid region in drought-induced natural disasters has resulted in a and characterized by high inter-annual and intra-seasonal considerable growth of interest in drought mitigation and rainfall variability. This region is regarded as one of preparedness worldwide. the most drought-prone areas in China. Low and erratic High economic costs and social vulnerability to rainfall, and soils with low water-holding capacity are droughts has led to increasing awareness of drought major features of the Jinghe watershed region, where vulnerability in recent years. Agricultural drought risk winter crops are often exposed to varying intensities of assessment is essential for drought management. Previous terminal drought. studies are weak because of the subjectivity in the selection Agriculture in the Jinghe watershed is largely rain-fed, of risk assessment indicators and the focus on evaluation low-input based and highly resource dependent. Almost index systems and evaluation models, usually conducted every year, this region experiences drought hazards, which on an administrative scale. Administrative scale-based risk impose high impacts on many aspects of society and assessment models lack accuracy to some degree. environment. To help decision makers reduce the impacts Received: 2011-09-18 Accepted: 2011-11-01 Foundation: National Key Technology R&D Program (No. 2008BAK50B05), National Key Project for basic research (973) (No.2009CB421106) and the Knowledge Innovation Program of CAS (No. KZCX2-EW-306). * Corresponding author: CHENG Shengkui. Email: [email protected]. LONG Xin, et al.: Quantitative Assessment and Spatial Characteristics of Agricultural Drought Risk in the Jinghe Watershed of Northwestern China 339 45 80.00 2 Study area 40 70.00 Jinghe River is one of the ten water systems of the Yellow 35 60.00 30 River, and also the biggest branch river of Weihe River 50.00 (Fig.2). It is 451 km long, with a total basin river area of 25 % 40.00 4 2 M ha 20 4.54×10 km . The watershed extends from 105°49′ to 30.00 15 108°58′ E longitude and from 34°14′ to 38 °10′ N latitude. 20.00 10 The Jinghe watershed is a typical loess plateau hilly area 10.00 5 with high conflicting human-land relationships (Zhen et 0 0.00 al. 2005). The watershed involves 31 counties, of which 1978 1980 1985 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 five counties belong to the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Affected area Ratio of drought to all Region, 13 counties belong to Shaanxi Province and 13 Fig. 1 Area affected by drought (1978–2009). counties belong to Gansu Province. The total area of the 31 involved counties is 70 039 km2. In this study, the of drought, it is important to improve our understanding of Jinghe watershed refers to these 31 counties. We selected the characteristics and parameters that cause drought and the 31 counties as the study area because risk management also risk assessment spatial distributions. is normally based on administrative units and some data It is important to quantitatively analyze the spatial used in this study is county-based. The altitude of the characteristics of agricultural drought risk at a fine area varies from 384–2923 m. The geographical location resolution and comprehensively estimate potential threats of the study area and an east-to-west and south-to-north and direct losses attributable to these phenomena on winter elevation gradient (about 2500 m) determine several wheat production. There is an urgent need to develop a climatic gradients and precipitation gradients. Climatically, region-wide agricultural drought risk assessment model. Jinghe watershed belongs to the temperate region where Therefore, this study aims to determine the key factors typical temperate continental climate prevails throughout in agricultural risk assessment and build a gird-based the year with an average temperature of 8℃. The climate agricultural risk assessment model for the dominant crop, is characterized as semi-humid (in the south) to semiarid winter wheat, in the Jinghe watershed using ArcGIS. (in the north), great annual temperature variations, highly This study also aims to characterize the spatial pattern of variable precipitation, and drought are dominant natural drought hazards, identify the vulnerability of agriculture hazards. The precipitation of the study area varies between to the impact of droughts, and map drought risk zones 350–660 mm, gradually decreasing from south to north. in the Jinghe watershed. With a map of agricultural risk, These gradients mainly determine the study area’s land use decision makers can better visualize the hazard and characteristics. Social-economically, the Jinghe watershed communicate the concept of risk to agricultural producers, has a total population of 932.24×104, and the natural natural resources managers and others related to drought population growth rate is between 6‰–12‰. The average management. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of this area in 106°E 107°E 108°E 109°E 70°E 80°E 90°E 100°E 110°E 120°e 110°E 120°e N N 38°N 38°N Legend Ningxia County boundary Provincial 40°N 37°N 37°N boundary Shaanxi 30°N 36°N 36°N Legend National boundary 35°N 35°N Gansu Study area 20°N Provincial boundary 0 25 50 km 106°E 107°E 108°E 109°E 80°E 90°E 100°E 110°E 120°e 110°E Fig. 2 The extent of the study area and the location of the Jinghe watershed, China. 340 Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.2 No.4, 2011 2007 was CNY 10 114, while the average value of that of methods used for agriculture drought risk assessments the National level is CNY 18 665, meaning the region is in the Jinghe watershed. Based on a literature review, economically undeveloped. The dominant crop in the study the proposed model was built to possess the following area is winter wheat and summer maize. Industry in this characteristics. First, the model needed to be crop- area is dominated by energy chemical engineering, which specific. The model was developed specifically for winter is represented by the branch company of Petro China of wheat as it is the dominant crop in this region. Second, Changqing Company in Xifeng District of Qingyang City. the model used for agricultural risk assessment related to phonological stages during winter wheat development, 3 Materials and methods providing risk information in a timely manner. Third, the Since the dominant crop in the study area is winter wheat, agricultural drought risk model was applied with both grid this study was based on the assumption that all the arable data and county-based data due to the data deficiency. land is cultivated by winter wheat, and the vulnerability 3.2.1 Agriculture drought risk assessment framework and risk assessment results are based on 1km × 1 km grid. According to the ISDR conceptual framework, risk is the combination of hazard severity and vulnerability. Also, 3.1 Materials Blaikie et al. (1994) defined risk as the product of hazard Data used for the hazard assessment were downloaded and vulnerability. Therefore, the risk assessment carried from the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service out in this study falls within the above two frameworks. system.