Abstract
Abstract. Agricultural drought is concerned with the soil moisture deficiency in relation to meteorological droughts and climatic factors and their impacts on agricultural production and economic profitability. Present study is based on two years kharif seasons i.e. 2018 and 2017, comparison of drought assessment using remote sensing, soil moisture indices, rainfall and crop sown area as per the New Drought Manual, December, 2016. The drought assessment was carried out at district and sub-district level under National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS) project. Drought trigger-1 is checked with rainfall deviation and dry spell. During 2017, the final drought categories were defined on the basis of Rainfall, Moisture and Vegetation Condition Index. During 2018, the final district level drought categories are defined using 3 indicators, where sown area upto end of August was also considered. Based on the approach defined in the New Drought Manual, analysis was carried out at district level for 17 major agricultural drought prone states of the country. State wise Rainfall deviation, dry spell, NDVI/NDWI situation was compared for both the years. Remote sensing based vegetation and water indices are important impact indicator out of 4 because it gives an idea of crop profile and surface wetness condition respectively. Thus the present study is an attempt to compare the drought situation in kharif season of years 2017 and 2018 on the basis of different impact indicators.
Highlights
Drought is temporary reduction in moisture availability significantly below the normal amount for a specific period
Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC) has carried out assessment of Trigger 1 at district level for 17 states Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Telangana Uttar Pradesh and Trigger 2 taluk level assessment in 14 states except Assam, Punjab and West Bengal
Percent Available Soil Moisture (PASM) is based on daily water balance and is defined as the ratio of the difference between the current soil moisture (SMc) and the permanent wilting point (PWP) to the field capacity (FC) and the Permanent wilting Point
Summary
Drought is temporary reduction in moisture availability significantly below the normal amount for a specific period. The intensity of drought may be moderate or severe depending on the deviations of seasonal rainfall In other words, it commences with the inability of plant roots to obtain soil moisture rapid enough to maintain the internal water balance of the crop (Gupta, 1992). For the areas, where Trigger 1 is YES, 3 out 4 impact indicators (Crop, Remote Sensing, Soil Moisture and Hydrology) are checked to assess the severity of drought situation (Trigger 2). If Drought situation is Severe/ Moderate, the state government needs to carry out ground truth for verification Based on this procedure, MNCFC has carried assessment of Trigger 1 (Rainfall) and Trigger 2 (Impact Indicators), at district level for 17 states The current article presents the comparative study of drought situation in kharif seasons of 2017 &2018
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