Rural

Irrigation districts that have long been managed around water scarcity are increasingly confronted with rapid‐onset flooding, creating new challenges for agricultural flood risk management. This study examines how personal disaster experience, village communication, and social media shape farmers’ perceptions of future flood loss and planting intentions in the Hetao Irrigation District of Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. The case is analytically important because recent flood shocks emerged in a historically drought‐oriented human‐water system. Based on a field survey of 591 farmers and analyzed using linear and generalized linear mixed‐effects models, the results indicate that personal disaster experience is the strongest predictor of future flood loss perception and is also associated with lower willingness to expand cultivated land. Media‐based disaster comparison significantly increases perceived future drought loss but does not further increase perceived flood loss. Community disaster communication does not directly heighten flood risk perception, yet it is positively associated with plans to expand production. The study identifies which information channels make flood loss salient and consequential for farm planning after recent events. The findings show that recent flood memory now dominates local risk cognition in this drought‐oriented irrigation system. Flood risk management in such settings should combine recent lived experience, locally specific guidance on waterlogging and drainage, and community‐based recovery support to strengthen agricultural resilience.

Large-scale resettlement linked to mining-induced subsidence has reshaped rural living environments and community structures, raising the question of how to engage in rural environmental participation within new communities—a central concern for rural sustainability. Adapting the framework of agency to this context, we advance a reference-point perspective that situates residents’ subjective evaluations of present conditions relative to past experiences, future expectations, and lateral benchmarks as frames through which agency is organized. Drawing on a household survey of 610 resettled rural residents in Huainan, one of China’s largest mining-based pillar cities, this study provides initial evidence for this approach. Men (p = .001), married respondents (p = .036), middle-aged adults (p < .001), and those with higher education (ps < .030) reported greater environmental participation willingness, indicating marked demographic variation. Each reference point was positively associated with participation willingness in models estimated separately (past-oriented: standardized β = 0.312; future-oriented: β = 0.190; social comparison: β = 0.236; all p < .001); when entered jointly with controls, only the past-oriented reference—using previous environmental conditions to evaluate the current environment—retained a robust association (β = 0.289, p < .001). This pattern suggests that comparative evaluations of the present versus one’s previous environment are a salient basis for how resettled residents participate in community environmental affairs, providing actionable cues for participation mobilization in new resettlement communities.