Table 1 Definitions and sources of explanatory variables used in this study.

Socioeconomic

1. Unemployment rate

2. Education

3. Migration

4. GDP (without oil)

1. Unemployment rate:

\(\frac{{\text{Number}} \, {\text{of}} \, {\text{unemployed}} \, {\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}{{\text{Total}} \, {\text{population}} \, {\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}\times 100\)

2. Percentage of educated persons:

\(\frac{{\text{Number}} \, {\text{of}}\text{ educated }{\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}{{\text{Total}} \, {\text{population}} \, {\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}\times 100\)

3. Percentage of migrated persons:

\(\frac{{\text{Number}} \, {\text{of}}\text{ migrants }{\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}{{\text{Total}} \, {\text{population}} \, {\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}\times 100\)

4. Percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) without oil from March 21, 2017, to March 21, 2018

1. The summary of the results of the 2016 workforce statistics plan of Iran²¹

2, 3. Population and housing census of Iran, 2016²⁰

4. An overview of the gross domestic product by province from 2010 to 2018²³

Demographic

1. Population

1. Sheep

2. Goats

3. Cows

1. Percentage of population:

\(\frac{{\text{Number}} \, {\text{of}}\text{ population }{\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}{{\text{Total}} \, {\text{population}} \, {\text{in}}\text{ the country}}\times 100\)

1. Percentage of sheep:

\(\frac{{\text{Number}} \, {\text{of}}\text{ sheep }{\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}{{\text{Total}}\text{ sheep }{\text{in}}\text{ the country }}\times 100\)

2. Percentage of goats:

\(\frac{{\text{Number}} \, {\text{of}}\text{ goats }{\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}{{\text{Total}}\text{ goats }{\text{in}}\text{ the country}}\times 100\)

3. The percentage of cows:

\(\frac{{\text{Number}} \, {\text{of}}\text{ cows }{\text{in}} \, {\text{province}}}{{\text{Total}}\text{ cows }{\text{in}}\text{ the country}}\times 100\)

1. Population and Housing Census of Iran, 2016²⁰

2, 3, 4. National Agricultural Census of Iran, 2014²²

Environmental

1. Temperature

1. Precipitation

2. NDVI

1. Minimum and maximum for each month (°C) (24 variables)

1. Average precipitation for each month (mm) (12 variables)

2. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)

1. Monthly synoptic data of Iran from March 2017 to March 2018²⁴

1. CRU-TS 4.03²⁶ downscaled with WorldClim 2.1²⁷

1. Obtained from NASA Earth Observation, (2022)²⁹

Topographic

Elevation

DEM of the U.S. (30 m spatial resolution)

Obtained from National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, (2022)²⁸