Environmental challenges and economic development: Role of Recent Droughts on Agricultural Economy in Sistan Area

Sistan area of Iran is located in warm and dry zone and affected by sub Tropical High pressure in summer (STHP) As a result sever droughts are frequent visitor of area. However, recent drought is most severe one during past 50 years. Droughts differ from other natural hazards in a variety of ways. One of the major differences is that droughts normally lack the highly visible direct impacts associated with other hazards such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes. The impacts from drought are generally nonstructural and spread out over large areas. Because of this difference, it is difficult to quantify the economic losses associated with droughts, making it difficult to appreciate how devastating droughts can be. To date, most estimation of the economic impacts of drought have been haphazard and incomplete Regional economy is affected by operation and interaction of environment and human being in geographical spaces, economy of Sistan as a regional economy with more than 800 villages suffered badly by drought. To recapitulate the situation before drought in the year 1997 agricultural sector provided more than 55 % of rural employment and more than 24% of rural labor force were employed in rural and cottage industries. Result of this research work shows that almost 80 % of rural employments in Sistan region were from agriculture and its related industries but during drought periods all these sources were lost. For example during drought period the area under cultivation reduced from 119000 hectares to 7200 hectare as a result total agricultural production reduced from 352555 tons to 35000 tons which means around 90 % reduction in production and area under cultivation. In this paper with the help of primary and secondary data an attempt is made to measure economic impacts of drought on rural economy of Sistan region. JEL classification: Q2

Environmental challenges, economic development, Role of Droughts, Agricultural Economy, Sistan Area.