Variability of extreme weather events and its impact on crop yield in Bundelkhand Agroclimatic zone of Madhya Pradesh

Abstract

The Bundelkhand Agroclimatic Zone of Madhya Pradesh has witnessed many extreme weather events in recent decades like excessive hotness, dryness, coldness and number of consecutive drought years. Drought and water scarcity are the major resource limiting factors of this zone. There was sharp increase in numbers of hot days during last decade (2001-10) in Chhatarpur and Datia districts. The numbers of heavy rainfall days sharply decreased at Tikamgarh and Chhatarpur districts while frost days increased in Datia during last decade. The micro level variability of drought was much higher than the temporal scale variability. The occurrence of drought at micro level in the recent decade was much higher. The frequent occurrence of drought during recent past had increased the soybean and paddy yield variability in this zone. This paper attempts to present impact of variability of extreme weather events on paddy and soybean yield and also rural livelihood. The paddy and soybean yield were normally affected by number of heavy rainy days and number of rainy days. The number of heavy rainy days greater than equal to 6 days in Tikamgarh, 7 days in Chhatarpur per year were may be required for sustainable paddy production. It is observed that in those districts where the temporal variation in number of rainy days is decreasing, the decrease in number of rainy days below 5 days per year was crucial for sustainable yield. Whereas in the districts where little temporal variation in number of rainy days observed, a particular number of heavy rainy days is not necessary for adequate crop yield. In Datia and Chhatarpur district, the animal discomfort days increased over the decades.