Abstract
Abstract. In India, stubble burning is frequently practiced in the dominant rice-growing states of the Indo-Gangetic Plains, primarily in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. We attempted monitoring and mapping of the active fire events in real time for all the 3 states by acquiring thermal datasets from 3 different sensors i.e. Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) at 375 m aboard Sumo-NPP, Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MODIS) at 1000 m aboard Terra & Aqua, and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) at 1,100 m aboard NOAA 18/19 & MetOp 1/2, made available by IARI Satellite Ground Station during Kharif crop harvest season (October–November) 2018. The standard algorithm of detection of the temperature of a pixel at (4.0 µm and/or 10 to 12 µm) and its difference from the temperature of surrounding pixels was employed for day and night passes. Analysis of active fire locations detected from VIIRS, MODIS and AVHRR between 01st October and 30th November 2018 suggests continuing practice of stubble burning with a total of 75563 burning events distributed as 59695, 9232 and 6636 in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, respectively. District-wise monitoring showed a significant upsurge of fire events during the study period in the south-western and eastern districts of Punjab. Intense fire was witnessed in northern districts of Haryana and western districts of Uttar Pradesh. Comparative analysis shows that the burning events in the current year up till 30th November 2018 are 85% of the events detected in 2017 and about 59.10% of the events detected in 2016. It implies that the burning of rice stubble in the current year has reduced significantly over the past years due to various scheme implemented by the State and Central government.
Highlights
According to Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), cereal crop nearly generates a total of about 352 Mt of residue, of which rice and wheat contribute to nearly 34% and 22% respectively
MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1 Study region This study focused on the pre-dominating rice residue burning areas of north-west (NW) India viz. Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for the detection of active fire points (Figure 3)
Active fire products derived from daily images from Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MODIS), Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR)/3 conveyed, for each pixel, critical information on, acquisition date/day of fire, location of the fire, confidence of the detected fire, and fire intensity quantified in watt per sq. meter (W/m2) (Giglio, 2003) and (Schrodeger, 2014)
Summary
According to Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), cereal crop nearly generates a total of about 352 Mt of residue, of which rice and wheat contribute to nearly 34% and 22% respectively. It may be economical for the farmer to burn the paddy residue for land clearance, this results in adding huge amounts of aerosols, particulate matter and GHG emissions (Badarinath, 2009), (Vadrevu, 2012) and (Vadrevu, 2013) (Figure 1).
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