The future of Cambodia’s rainfed rice cultivation is associated with high risks and uncertainties in the face of climate change. The projected increases in drought frequency and its uneven distribution over seasons and across places due to climate change coupled with low adaptive capacity of rural farmers speaks to the necessity to build drought resilience across the country. The main objectives of this study were to identify sources of drought resilience at household and commune levels and to find possible ways to improve resilience to drought. To meet the objectives, a system dynamics model for drought resilience was developed. Data from household survey were used to estimate major model input variables through descriptive statistics, to define farm household typology through two-step cluster analysis, and to estimate relation between variables using multiple regressions. The results of the study show that access to irrigation is the most important source of resilience at both household and community levels. Improving access to irrigation to the threshold level of approximately 40% can help maintain stability and continuous development of rice production over time. Another important source of drought resilience is agricultural diversification such as spatial diversification of paddy lands and varietal diversification. The group of farmers that is resilient to drought is associated with this characteristic. On the other hand, nonfarm diversification such as remittance from migration and local wages can be other sources of resilience to drought. However, it is to be noticed that the resilient group of farmers is associated with an average degree of dependence on both rice and nonfarm incomes, denoting that depending too much on nonfarm income might draw resources away from agriculture.
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