A Comprehensive Study of Agricultural Drought Resistance and Background Drought Levels in Five Main Grain-Producing Regions of China

Lei Kang and Hongqi Zhang
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Lei Kang: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Hongqi Zhang: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-20

Abstract: Drought control and resistance affect national food security. With this in mind, we studied five main grain-producing regions of China: Sanjiang Plain, Songnen Plain, Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, the middle Yangtze River and Jianghuai region and Sichuan Basin. Using GIS technology, we evaluated the comprehensive agricultural drought situation based on major crops, the basic drought resistance by integrating multiple indicators and the comprehensive drought resistance against background agricultural drought. We chose spring wheat, winter wheat, early rice, late rice, single-season rice and maize as the research objects and calculated a crop composite drought index to determine that the agricultural drought degree was highest in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and slightly lower in the Sanjiang and Songnen Plains. The drought degree was relatively low in the middle Yangtze River and Jianghuai region and the Sichuan Basin. A remarkable difference was observed in agricultural drought resistance among the grain-producing areas. The entire Sanjiang Plain had the lowest agricultural drought resistance, and that of the Songnen Plain was slightly higher. In the Sichuan Basin, many areas had lower and intermediate values of drought resistance. In the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and middle Yangtze River and Jianghuai region, resistance was stronger. The ranking of comprehensive drought resistance from strongest to weakest was Huang-Huai-Hai Plain > middle Yangtze River and Jianghuai region > Sichuan Basin > Songnen Plain > Sanjiang Plain. Finally, the sensitivity analysis was carried out to discuss the sensitive factors significantly affecting the agricultural drought resistance.

Keywords: agricultural drought situation; comprehensive drought resistance; sensitivity analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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