Assessment of Resilience to Drought of Rural Communities in Iran

Abstract

In recent years, drought has inflicted significant damage on agriculture and rural communities<br><br>in Iran. Resilience is the capability of communities to handle and tolerate exterior pressures<br><br>such as drought. The purpose of this study was to identify the indicators affecting social resilience<br><br>against drought, determining the cause of reduction or increase of resilience in different<br><br>regions. It also focuses on strategies for increasing resilience of rural communities through the<br><br>provision of social services in Iran. The required information was collected using a questionnaire<br><br>from five villages, including 237 villagers who were selected through snowball method.<br><br>Shannon’s entropy and COPRAS methods were employed to determine and classify the<br><br>drought resilience. The results show that some indicators like modified irrigation methods and<br><br>new methods of coping with drought have devoted the highest weight. Also, there is a significant<br><br>relationship between resilience rating of villages with average age of the households and<br><br>number of households in nonfarm job. Finally, absolute drought resilience of rural communities<br><br>remained in moderate situation. Doing study in wider areas to coordinate the effective<br><br>indicators in the matter and studying how empowerment of local communities by providing a<br><br>variety of social services can be considered as a further research in the future.