Rural Community Resilience to Drought and Sustainable Development in Inner Mongolian Plateau, China

Prolonged droughts have emerged as a major impediment to the revitalization of pastoral regions worldwide because they significantly augment their susceptibility to the deleterious effects of global climate change, overgrazing, and land degradation. This study, conducted in 106 pastoral villages across 33 pastoral banners of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China between August 2021 and October 2022, used a community resilience evaluation indicator system to assess drought resistance. By calculating a community resilience index, the research explored influencing factors and proposed countermeasures, aiming to enhance resilience to prolonged drought. The results revealed three key findings. 1) Pastoral areas exhibited a limited degree of community resilience to drought disasters (overall score = 0.28), with resilience levels forming a pyramid-shaped hierarchy. 2) Dimensional analysis showed that resilience scores decreased sequentially across five domains: social (0.53) > cultural (0.44) > environmental (0.38) > economic (0.32) > management (0.27). These results highlight the crucial role of economic and management resilience in enhancing community resilience, particularly when accompanied by pre- and post-disaster government support and social security, both of which must be improved. 3) Key factors influencing community resilience included geographical location, traffic accessibility, and frequency and severity of droughts. From a drought resilience perspective, targeted strategies and recommendations are proposed to provide novel and practical approaches for achieving sustainable development in pastoral areas and rural regions as a whole.