An Analysis of Vulnerability to Agricultural Drought in China Using the Expand Grey Relation Analysis Method

Abstract The identification of agricultural drought vulnerability is an essential step in addressing the issue of drought vulnerability in the country and can lead to mitigation-oriented drought management. In this study, it developed an approach to estimate vulnerability to agricultural drought based on the expand grey relation analysis method (GRA).The new methodology consists of (1) developing the main influence factors of vulnerability to agricultural drought and converting them into quantitative indicators, (2) constructing the evaluation standards and their relative weights based on the collected data on the values of the indicators from 31 provinces and cities in China, (3) computing the vulnerability to agricultural drought of 31 provinces and cities in China in 2009 using expand GRA method. The results indicated that the vulnerability to agricultural drought in the southeast coast of China with more precipitation and irrigation is lower than the central areas; the most vulnerable areas are the west area with less precipitation and irrigation. Some measures for mitigating the vulnerability to agricultural drought in different areas were proposed.