Learning from drought: does prior experience enhance herders’ adaptive responses?

As climate-related disasters become more frequent and intense, understanding how herders respond to drought risk is critical for strengthening resilience in pastoral areas. Existing studies have widely examined the determinants of adaptive behaviours. However, they have paid limited attention to prior disaster experience, which may shape decision-making through learning, memory, and risk perception. This study employed a bivariate probit model to quantify the association between drought experience and adaptive behaviours and examine the potential mechanisms using survey data from 519 herder households across six counties in Inner Mongolia, China. The results show that prior drought exposure is positively associated with herders’ adaptive responses, particularly preventive adaptation. Drought-induced economic losses are also positively associated with adaptation, whereas longer time since the most severe drought is associated with a lower probability of adjustment-oriented responses. Moreover, some of these associations are more pronounced among female herders and, separately, among herders in ecologically fragile grassland areas. We also found that herders’ perception of drought severity partially mediates the association between drought experience and preventive adaptation. These findings call for better access to meteorological disaster and adaptation information, stronger drought risk perception among herders, and greater participation of female herders in disaster preparedness.