Adaptation Of Rural Areas Under Drought Stress

With the international community paying high attention to sustainable development,sustainable science emerges as the times require.Adaptation research has become one of the important contents of sustainable science research,which provides a new direction for the exploration of peasant households' sustainable livelihoods.Considering the context of environmental stress and based on the theories about peasant households' sustainable livelihoods and adaptation,this paper explores adaptive measures,adaptive capacity and adaptive actions from the perspective of township and peasant households in the Minqin Oasis area.On the basis of adaptive capacity assessment framework,the evaluation index system of adaptive capacity is constructed.According to the township statistics and field investigation of peasant households and based on the analysis of township adaptive measures and the classification of adaptive actions of peasant households,this research measures the adaptive capacity of township and different adaptive types of peasant households and analyzes the influencing factors of peasant households' adaptive capacity and adaptive actions.The results as follows:(1)The dry climate,the short water resource,the worse quality of ground water,and the frequent and serious sand storm,all of these are the severe ecological environment,which has seriously influence on the agriculture and daily life.Therefore,the government has taken a series of adaptive measures.For example,they adopt water resources policy,"shut down the well and cut down the farmland",returning farmland to forest and grassland,sand controlling and other ecological measures,which is to control the impact of environmental change as well as promoting the restoration of entironment.At the same time,they vigorously advocate the facilities of agriculture and animal husbandry,the characteristics of fruit industry and other social and economic measures to improve farmers' economic benefits.(2)With regard to township adaptation measures,there are significant differences among the three irrigation districts and towns in terms of ecological,social and economic adaptive measures.From the point of view of the adaptive capacity of township,the spatial differentiation is remarkable,which shows the overall spatial distribution pattern of "low in the central part and high in the northeast and the southwest".Meanwhile,township adaptive measures affect its adaptive capacity.Water resources and returning farmland to forest,science and technology,and the economic benefits of agricultural products are key factors that have influences on the natural coping capacity,social security capacity and economic development capacity.(3)More peasant households choose active adaptive actions,while those who opted for reducing consumption and participating in social insurance are fewer.It is divided six adaptive types by peasant households' adaptive actions and there are obvious differences in adaptive capacity and its each dimension among different types of peasant households.Simultaneously the distribution is not balanced.The external factors,such as natural coping capacity,social security capacity and economic development capacity,affect the natural,labor,learning,financial and material capacity of peasant households.Among the indicators of adaptive capacity,which is internal factors,per capita area of "returning farmland to forest and cutting down wells and field",per capita water expenditure,proportion of non-agricultural employment,proportion of male working population,level of education,trusting in people around them,social network and so on,have significant influences on farmers' choice of adaptive actions.(4)In order to improve the adaptive capacity of township and peasant household,and promote sustainable livelihoods of peasant households,this paper offers some proposals,including formulating economic adaptive measures and suiting these measures to local conditions,implementing the water resources policy in a way of "broaden sources of income and reduce expenditure",developing the market for agricultural products,strengthening technical training,adjusting the planting structure,et al,which is fundamentally to ensure the sustainable development of the region.