PJB-2018-826
ASSESSMENT OF DROUGHT HAZARDS AND COPING STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY DWELLING PASTORAL COMMUNITIES IN CHOLISTAN DESERT RANGELAND, PAKISTAN
MUHAMMAD FAROOQ AZHAR
Abstract
Drought is a common feature of all desert rangelands which directly affect the biotic life including local dwellers by various means. These drought prone dwellers adopted various strategies to survive during harsh terrain. These strategies vary according to locality and depend on multiple socioeconomic factors. In this study, estimation of drought severity in Cholistan desert during the recent past was calculated alongwith different economic and ecological impacts of droughts and survival strategies adopted by dwelling pastoralist were quantified. Various means of data collection were used including household surveys, interviews and group discussions with pastoral communities. Standardized precipitation index is used to estimate the severity of drought through rainfall data from 1987 to 2017, obtained from Pakistan council of research in water resources. In this study 120 respondents were selected randomly from different areas of Cholistan desert rangeland including both lesser and greater cholistan. The conducted study showed that severe droughts occurs in cholistan during the year 1999 (-10), 2002 (-11.6), 2014 (-2.69), 2015 (-2.93) and 2017 (-0.53). the coping strategies adopted by pastoralist before and during droughts were, migrations(40.3%), destocking of livestock herds (27.4%), splitting of herds (11.5%), grain storage (7.3%) and household splitting is (4.3%), adopting alternative livelihood options as labor work(2.7%), making of homemade crafts , and slaughtering of livestock (6.5%).
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