An integrated method for assessing drought prone areas - Water efficiency practices for a climate resilient Mediterranean agriculture

•An integrated GIS drought decision tool was validated for Crete.•About 19% of Crete has been identified as “very high prone areas”.•The tool allowed indicating water saving practices for Mediterranean tree crops. [Display omitted] This paper presents a new integrated GIS modeling method to assess drought vulnerability using multi-criteria analysis. The proposed methodology is an improvement over previous methods since it incorporates both dynamic and static factors that may affect water dynamics and contribute to water scarcity. These factors are: a) precipitation, b) evapotranspiration, c) soil water content, d) soil depth, e) artificial drainage, f) depth to water table, g) runoff accumulation, and h) saltwater intrusion zones. The above factors and their corresponding maps were fuzzified and spatially overlayed in order to obtain the final drought vulnerability map. The map depicts the spatial distribution of drought vulnerability represented by five classes ranging from very low to very high vulnerability. The proposed methodology was applied to the Greek island of Crete located in the Southeast Mediterranean region. The island of Crete is one of the most drought-prone areas in the region, while at the same time the island's economy relies strongly on agriculture and tourism. The derived results show that drought vulnerability is more severe in the eastern part of the island and that the coastal zones of the entire island are drought-prone areas. Also, according to the results, 19% of the island's area is characterized as “very highly vulnerable to drought”. This percentage varies significantly across the prefectures, with Rethymnon having the lowest vulnerability (2.8%), followed by the prefectures of Chania (6.3%), and Heraklion (17.3%), while the prefecture of Lassithi is the most vulnerable to drought (51.4%). The developed methodology was validated using historical data for drought affected areas in Crete, which is not always addressed in publications. Moreover, in this study, sustainable agricultural practices that ensure water efficiency especially in drought prone areas are proposed. These practices can be adopted by farmers to promote climate resilient agriculture in the Mediterranean region.