This paper investigates the impact of erratic rainfall and related water problems on agricultural productivity. The paper also aims to shed light on the conceptual importance of understanding the incidence and impacts of rainfall shocks for choosing feasible agricultural water risk management strategies both at household and policy levels. To achieve these goals we develop a conceptual framework, use national representative data from Zambia’s crop estimates survey for 2017/2018 farming season, employ fixed effects regression approach, and find that dry spells, excessive floods, incidence of water logging are all detrimental to crop productivity. The crop-based equations also reveal the differential impacts of the rainfall shocks on different crops. Since the effect of water factors including dry spells, floods and water logging on agricultural productivity is dependent on the crop types, it is important for the Zambian government as well as other countries to take this into account when planning and implementing strategies for agricultural water risk management.

本文调查了不稳定的降雨和相关的水问题对农业生产力的影响。本文还旨在阐明理解降雨冲击的发生率和影响的概念重要性，以便在家庭和政策层面选择可行的农业水风险管理策略。为实现这些目标，我们开发了一个概念框架，使用赞比亚 2017/2018 农季作物估计调查的全国代表性数据，采用固定效应回归方法，发现干旱、洪水泛滥、涝灾发生都对作物有害生产率。基于作物的方程还揭示了降雨冲击对不同作物的不同影响。由于包括干旱在内的水分因素的影响，