Determinants of heterogeneous farmers’ joint adaptation strategies to irrigation-induced landslides on the Loess Plateau, China

Understanding the determinants of farmers’ disaster adaptation is significant for risk reduction. This study explores farmers’ willingness and influencing factors to adopt various agricultural and non-agricultural adaptation measures to mitigate irrigation-induced landslides on the Loess Plateau, northern China. Multivariate probit models are applied to address the joint decision-making of multiple choices considering their inter-correlations, using data from 397 farmer survey questionnaires. The results reveal that farmers’ characteristics, landslide experience, social factors, landslide perception, and the present adaptation situation play important but different roles in their adaptation decisions regarding various measures (drip irrigation, drought-tolerant crops, income diversification, and migration). Heterogeneity among farmers is considered: Government support, social network, and perception of landslide causation are essential in affecting all of the farmers’ adaptation decisions, while the impacts of the annual income, gender, land scale, and risk perception on non-agriculture farmers and full-time or part-time farmers are opposite. Notably, current adaptation hinders farmers’ future actions. The probability of adopting a specific measure is estimated to be higher than that of joint adoption. Barriers to adaptation are also addressed, and policy implications are discussed. This study provides a theoretical and practical reference for mitigating landslide risks that are caused by artificial triggers.