Risk analysis and evaluation of agricultural drought disaster in the major grain-producing areas, China

The analysis and evaluation of agricultural drought risk can assist in reducing regional disasters and agricultural drought losses. Because of the uncertainties and incomplete agricultural drought information, this paper employed an information diffusion technology and information matrix to identify a drought disaster risk distribution and to quantify the relationship between the annual drought-affected rate and the grain production losses in China's major grain-producing areas. From the assessment results, provincial drought disaster risk spatial distribution maps for each major grain-producing area in China were obtained. These risk patterns showed that the probability of drought fell when the annual drought-covered rate and the annual drought-affected rate increased, and that the high risk areas were located primarily in China's northern and central provinces. These results can provide the basis for the development of effective drought mitigation strategies which would be able to inform possible drought situations and allow for easier decision-making on drought resistance strategies. The fuzzy relationship between the annual drought-affected rate and the drought-caused grain production losses provides vital information for the development of disaster compensation plans. Furthermore, the results of this study indicated that the proposed methods had superior detection stability and higher precision. We hope that by conducting such agricultural drought risk analysis, the results are able to provide the basis for the development of drought mitigation strategies to reduce future losses.