A nine-step approach for developing and implementing an “agricultural drought risk management plan”; case study: Alamut River basin in Qazvin, Iran

Occurrence of drought, as an inevitable natural climate feature, cannot be ceased while happening. However, costs of the consequences could be alleviated using mature scientific integrated approaches. To reduce the amount of damage, it is required to provide “Contingency” and “Mitigation” action plans. For this reason, development of efficient operating instructions for various regions based on weather conditions and field studies is needed as well as having a sophisticated understanding of socioeconomic situations. This paper describes an approach to provide the first national agricultural drought risk management plan for a river basin in Iran country as a pilot. The study lasted for 3 years as a national technical research project for the “soil conservation and watershed management research institute.” To reach the objectives, besides holding workshops and specialized think-tank meetings, field researches were done. Based on the socioeconomic data sources in the basin and the results of meetings by participation of local managers and residents, the final plan was developed. Moreover, in order to carry out this research, different climatic, agricultural and local information were collected in the watershed. In the next steps, potential risks and vulnerabilities of various agricultural sectors due to the hazard were evaluated. In this study, a nine-step approach to develop an agricultural drought risk management plan proposing different scientific–managerial phases based on the latest experts’ opinions, released international scientific best practices, and existing conditions governing the region was followed. With respect to the average income of US$ one million from agriculture and animal husbandry in the river basin, total drought loss varies from US$ 86,000 to US$ 258,000 for a range of light to very intense drought conditions, respectively. The setup of these nine executive phases defined monitoring, forecasting, and warning steps in working teams and managed the subprograms in partnership with stakeholders and decision-makers to mitigate the rate of drought damage from 30 to 47% (depending on the severity of the drought condition).