Navigating drought in Kunduz province, Afghanistan: insights from experts' perspectives

Drought can result in starvation, malnutrition, heightened migration, and societal damage. Kunduz province, a significant contributor to the Afghanistan's agricultural output, has experienced successive waves of drought affecting all aspects of life, which calls for radical solutions of this issue in the province. This research aimed to examine the views of specialists in Kunduz province towards the methods for dealing with droughts. The statistical population of the research consisted of 81 economic and agricultural experts from Kunduz province, selected by the counting method. The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire constituted of 31 strategies of coping with drought graded on a 5-point scale. Centrality and dispersion statistics were utilized together with the coefficient of variation and exploratory factor analysis to analyze and characterize the data. The coefficient of variations revealed that the top priority solutions included water resource reconstruction and restoration, improved water division and distribution, decreased reliance of farmers on agricultural income, rural industry development, and adoption of new irrigation technologies. The exploratory factor analysis revealed that economic-specialist, educational-managerial, infrastructural, social, and diversification strategies are crucial for addressing drought and climate change in the research area. These components accounted for 62.1% of the variance in solutions.