An end-to-end analysis of drought from smallholder farms in southwest Jamaica

Abstract:

Drought can be defined in many ways: meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, and socio-economic. Another way to approach drought is from a “perception” perspective, where individuals whose livelihood is highly dependent on precipitation take adaptive actions. In this study we use two-years of data collected from twelve smallholder farms in southern St. Elizabeth, Jamaica to undertake an end-to-end analysis of drought. At each farm, 6-hour temperature and soil moisture, and tipping-bucket rainfall were recorded from June 2013 to June 2015, and twice-monthly farmers indicated whether they were experiencing drought and if they irrigated (hand-watering, drip irrigation, or pipe and sprinkler). In many cases half of the farmers considered themselves in a drought, while the others not, even though the largest separation among farms was about 20 km. This study will use analysis of variance to test the following hypotheses: Drought perception is related to a) absolute amounts of precipitation at the time, b) other environmental cues at the time (soil moisture, temperature), or c) relative amounts of precipitation as compared to the same time last year. Irrigation actions and water use following the perception of drought will also be examined.