Chapter 13 - GIS-based assessment for agricultural susceptibility and sustainability to meteorological drought in West Bengal

Abstract

Abstract Meteorological drought is one of the major stress factors that have significant impact on agriculture. So, monitoring drought is essential for assessing, predicting, and analyzing its impact. In this study, we apply multiindex approach for monitoring drought. With the help of Meteorological drought Monitoring software, seven precipitation-based drought indices like Standardized precipitation Index, Percent of Normal Index, Deciles Index, China-Z index (CZI), Modified CZI, Rainfall Anomaly Index and Z-Score Index are measured using district-wise monthly and seasonal precipitation data (1995–2018, IMD) in West Bengal. For assessing the drought-prone area (DPA), we also presented weighted overlay in Arc-GIS using those seven indices. Agriculture (crop production, crop yield, crop productivity, crop diversification, and crop combination) is much more susceptible because of its degree of dryness (DD) due to scarcity of rainfall and insufficient irrigation facility. In premonsoon and monsoon season, DD is moderate to near normal in 82.44% and 77.83% area of the study area, respectively, which created negative effect on kharif crop (aman paddy, aus paddy, jute, and wheat), but at the same time, rabi crops productivity (boro paddy, potato, and mustard) is quite well due to postmonsoonal wetness (50.1% area). Also, farmers of DPA (western most blocks and southern coastal blocks) have traditionally cultivated Monocrop, and in the area of moderately wet to very wet, crop diversification is followed.