Assessing agriculture's vulnerability to drought in European pre-Alpine regions

This study aims to improve the understanding of agriculture's vulnerability to drought in Europe's pre-Alpine region, considering two case studies that have been severely impacted in the past. Droughts are natural hazards that lead to severe impacts in the agricultural sector. Mountain regions are thought to have abundant water but have experienced unprecedented drought conditions as climate change is affecting their environments more rapidly than other places. The effect radiates by reducing water availability well beyond the mountains' geographical locations. The study applied a mixed-method approach combining the knowledge of regional experts with quantitative data analyses in order to define the region-specific vulnerability based on experts' identified factors.

Overall, the results of this vulnerability assessment identified a range of adaptation strategies dependent on regional resources and efficient communication between the agricultural, political, and scientific professionals. Many facets of the described adaptation strategies to decrease vulnerability to drought are in accordance with sustainability goals and climate change adaptation, demonstrating the need to move from emergency actions to better preparedness. In order to better understand and quantitatively describe feedback relations and interactions between vulnerability factors, the development of drought vulnerability models integrating nonlinearities is required, a field still highly underexplored.