1. Drought Management – Integration of
Geo Spatial & Contemporary Technologies
C. S. Murthy
Principal Investigator (Drought)
C. S. Murthy
Principal Investigator (Drought)
Disaster Management Support Program
National Remote Sensing Agency
(Dept. of Space, Govt. of India)
RS & GIS Applications Area
National Remote Sensing Agency
(Dept. of Space, Govt. of India)

2. Organizations associated with drought assessment/monitoring
Activity
India Meteorological Department, NCMRWF
Meteorological information such as rainfall, temperature and derived products on aridity anomaly at subdivision level. Mainly for meteorological drought.
Agro-advisory services based on weather data
Central Water Commission
Water levels in surface water bodies - hydrological drought
State Departments of Agriculture
Monitoring crop sown area progression and drought prevalence through manual observations on agricultural situation and the data on rainfall and surface water bodies. Contingency crop plans.
State Disaster Management Authorities
Analyzing data from different departments and drought declaration
State Agricultural Universities
Agro-advisory services
Contingency crop plans
ICAR
Agro meteorological data bases
Agro advisory services
Drought proofing measures
NRSA
(Dept. of Space, Govt. of India)
In season agricultural drought assessment and monitoring with satellite images and geospatial information technologies.

3. SATELLITE MONITORING OF AGRICULTURAL DROUGHT Biophysical Parameters
Vegetation Index
Satellite Sensors
Agricultural
Drought
Biophysical Parameters
Rain
Meteorological
Drought
Evapo transpiration
Infiltration &
Percolation
Hydrological
Drought
Runoff
Runoff
Surface
Storage
Ground water
Storage

4. Earth Observation Systems and Geo-spatial Information Technology
for drought assessment and management
Geo-stationery &
Communication
Satellites
Earth Resources
Satellites
1. Monitoring of
Crop area, crop condition & yield
Range lands
2. Soil moisture estimation
3. Land surface temperature
Meteorological information
Monitoring vegetation
Monitoring range lands
Village Resource
Centres (VRCs)
Automatic Weather
Stations (AWS)
Geo-spatial tools-
Geographic Information System (GIS) – Data ware house, knowledge discovery,
data mining, Spatial modellers etc
PNT systems (Position, Navigation and Tracking System)
Data integration from diff. sources/ decision support
Data communication and net working
Drought assessment
Vulnerability mapping
Drought mitigation
Drought management

5. Methodology for drought assessment, kharif season (AVHRR/WiFS/AWiFS)
Harmonization of NDVI and ground data
Change in crop calendar
Lag between NDVI &
rainfall
Abnormal weather events
Such as floods
Normal
Watch
Alert
Drought warning
(June, July, August)
Drought declaration
(Sep, Oct)
Mild
Moderate
Severe
NDVI anomaly
Assessment
Relative dev.
VCI
In season
transformation
Extent of NDVI
anomaly
Extent of rainfall
deviation
Extent of sown area
Agricultural
drought
situation

6. NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL DROUGHT ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING SYSTEM
Satellite data analysis
Drought assessment
Coverage
Information reporting
Integration with ground data

7. AVHRR NDVI – August 2007
June 07
July 07
August 07

8. Agricultural Drought Assessment – Aug 2007
NDVI
Uttar Pradesh state

9. Andhra Pradesh state August 2007 Agricultural drought assessment
AWiFS NDVI
Andhra Pradesh state
August 2007
Agricultural drought assessment
at dis-aggregated level
June 2007
July 2007
93 mandals in 7 districts
were found to be under mild agricultural drought situation
August 2007

10. Agricultural Drought Assessment
(upto August 2007)
Agricultural drought situation
in 55 districts in the country
22 districts in U.P
11 districts in M.P
8 districts in Rajasthan
6 districts in Maharashtra
7 districts in AP
1 district in Bihar

11. Crop condition anomalies at different levels
Normal year (2005)
State
District
Block
Drought year (2002)

12. Impact of 2002 drought at block level Anantpur district

13. Drought vulnerability mapping – space & ground inputs
Hanumantharao committee 1994
% area irrigated at district and block level in different agro climatic zones was the main criteria
1173 blocks in 185 districts of 13 states – 120 M ha as drought prone
Parthasarathy Committee 2005 – re-look in to criteria for drought proneness
CRIDA ‘s criteria – Rainfall and irrigation support
NRSA – Historic NDVI from high resolution data
Integration of these two methods for composite drought prone index
Anantpur district
Mahaboobnagar district
Participating Organizations
CRIDA
NRSA
NIRD
Data used
NDVI
Rainfall
Irrigation support
More vulnerable
Less vulnerable

14. Information requirements for in-season drought management1
Beginning of the season
(a) Extent of delay in sowings (no. of days/weeks)
(b) Extent of reduction in sown area
(c) Expected sown area 2
Middle/end of the season
(a) Impact of drought on standing crops.
(b) Expected reduction in crop yield
Information requirements for
in-season drought management 3
Scale of information
At different spatial units (mandals/taluks) within district
Weekly/fortnightly information 4
Quantitative assessment of drought impact
Area affected by drought - list of drought affected mandals/taluks along with severity level.
(b) Extent of reduction in crop yield. 5
Early warning on drought occurrence/severity

15. Drought management Goals Land management Crop management
In-season management
(near real-time)
Assessment indicators
Monitoring mechanism
End-of-the season management
Drought declaration rationale
Relief management
Short term
Contingency crop plan
Drought resistant cultivars
Cultivation practices for soil
and water conservation
Mid season corrections
Nutrient management
Goals
Land management
Crop management
Fodder management
Agricultural Water
management
Drinking Water
Socio-economic equity
Long term
Watershed management
Ground water recharge
Water use efficiency
Employment generation
Public awareness

16. Criteria for drought declaration by different states
Declaration of drought by state level
Declaration in Sept/Oct
Memorandum of scarcity
Verification by Central Govt.
Criteria in different states
State
Criteria for drought declaration
Andhra Pradesh
1. Mandal level rainfall
2. Mandal level crop sown area
3. Yield reduction
4. Dry spells
Karnataka
Rainfall
Dry weeks
Maharashtra
Paisewari system, yield loss 100 point scale
Orissa
Block level rainfall, Crop assessment
Rajasthan, UP and J & K
Yield loss criteria

17. Standard criteria for operational drought assessment & declaration
Scientific approach
Criteria should cut across various rainfall zones, agro-ecological zones
Complete and comprehensive – rainfall, soil and plant
Weather data
IMD weather stations
Revenue rain guages
Automatic Weather stations
Geo-stationery satellites
Soil moisture
Soil water balance
Automatic Weather stations
Microwave satellites
Thermal data from satellites
Drought severity
Classification at
Sub district level
Drought declaration
Relief Assessment
Relief Management
Crop condition & crop estimation
Geospatial near realtime from
different satellites
Bio-physical parameters from
satellites
Agro meterological yield models
Improved manual crop estimation
surveys
Crop sown areas
Manual collection
Satellite observations

18. National Drought Management System
A model
KNOWLEDGE
CENTER (KC)
Integrated Geospatial Data base on drought
related parameters (Spatial and non spatial)
Geo-informatics tools for data analysis
Knowledge
Data mining
Data Fusion
Spatial Decision
Support Systems
. . .
Institutional participation
Near real-time flow
of data/information
Agriculture
Meteorology
Hydrology
Socio-economic
Academic
Scientific
Flow of expertise
Drought Assessment at
diff. spatial & temporal scales
Delivery & Feedback mechanism
Federal
Government
State
District
Administration
Farmers

19. Institutional Linkages with KNOWLEDGE CENTRE (KC)
Main issues
Identification of institutions
Defining roles/responsibilities
Ensuring near realtime flow of data and knowledge
Ensuring end use and feed back analysis
Ministry of Agriculture, GOI
IMD
ICAR
Remote Sensing
KNOWLEDGE
CENTRE (KC)
State Depts. of Agril.
State Agril. Universities
State Depts. of Planning
State Depts. of Relief
Other Academic/Scientific

20. Standardization of data collection and Transmission system
Weather data -- IMD stations
Revenue stations
Increasing the density - Automatic Weather Stations
2. Agriculture – Soil information (Soil maps)
Deep Soils
Shallow soils
Geo morphology – uplands, low lands
Cropping pattern,
Irrigation support
Crop sown area progression
3. Geospatial data bases
Land Use / Land cover
Crop condition
Bio physical parametrs etc
4. Consistency in the data collection procedures, timeliness etc
Data transmission to centralised servers
Surface mail, e mail
Satellite transmission

21. Harmonization of data & Unified index – A Classic example
Multi disciplinary
Involvement of multiple organizations
(about 150 scientists are involved)
Comprehensive drought assessment
It is not a forecasting/early warning system
Drought monitor is at
climatic division averaged.
Not good for local level
decision making

22. Criteria in US Drought monitor
Category
Palmer drought index
CPC soil moisture model
Stream flows
SPI
Satellite Vegetation health index
Normal
-1 to -1.9
21-30
-.5 to -.7
36-45
Moderate drought
-2 to -2.9
11-20
-.8 to -1.2
26-35
Severe drought
-3 to -3.9
6-10
-1.3 to -1.5
16-25
Extreme drought
-4 to -4.9
3-5
-1.6 to -1.9
6-15
Exceptional drought
-5 or less
0-2
-2 or less
1-5

23. Automatic Weather Stations
Special sensors for measuring soil moisture
Data transmission through communication satellites – Kalpana - 1, INSAT 3A
consistency in data recording, enhanced frequency of coverage,
Coverage of inaccessible areas, all weather and all time operations
Affordable alternatives to get detailed weather information.
AWS measures – meteorological parameters like rainfall, humidity, temperature
AWS are being established in selected locations in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

24. Thank you all