Satellite Data Based Soil Water Index as a Tool to Monitor Droughts and Agricultural Crisis -An Example of Yavatmal District, Maharashtra, India

Abstract

Yavatmal is one of the drought prone districts in Maharashtra state of India and has witnessed an agricultural crisis to the extent that hundreds of its farmers have committed suicides in recent years. Satellite data based products have previously been used globally for monitoring and predicting of drought, but not for monitoring their extreme impacts that may include farmer-suicides. In this study, the performance of the Soil Water Index (SWI) derived from the surface soil moisture estimated by the European Space Agency’s Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) is assessed. Using the 2007-2015 data, it was found that the relationship of the SWI anomaly was bit stronger (coefficient. of correlation = 0.59) with the meteorological drought or precipitation than with the agricultural drought or crop yields of major crops (coefficient. of correlation = 0.50). The farmer-suicide rate was better correlated with the SWI anomaly averaged annually than with the SWI anomaly averaged only for the monsoon months (June, July, August, and September). The correlation between the SWI averaged annually increased to 0.89 when the averages were taken for three years, with the highest correlation occurring between the suicide rate and the SWI anomaly averaged for three years. However, a positive relationship between SWI and the suicide rate indicated that drought was not a major factor responsible for suicide occurrence and other possible factors responsible for suicide occurrence need to examine in detail.