In this study, an attempt has been made to assess the crop situation in India, before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, during the lockdown and after the lockdown. In India, the lockdown was imposed from 24 March to 31 May 2020. That was the period of harvesting of Rabi (winter) season crop and sowing of Zaid (summer) season crop. However, the government announced a large number of measures to provide relaxation to agricultural activities during the lockdown. A satellite remote sensing-based assessment was carried out to see the impact of the lockdown and government measures. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time composite all-India product derived from Resourcesat-2/2A Advanced Wide Field Sensor for February, May, and July 2020 was used to assess the crop situation, representing three crop seasons, i.e. Rabi, Zaid and Kharif (rainy). NDVI images of 2020 were compared with corresponding images of 2019. Change images were generated, and state-level NDVI values were computed. The state-level cropped area proportion was also mapped using the NDVI thresholding approach. The crop sown area statistics, crop cutting experiment (CCE) numbers and rainfall data were also compared for both the years. It was observed that the differences were very low between the NDVI of 2019 and 2020 in February month. However, the differences were high in many states during May and in most of the states during July. A statistical test of significance (paired
t
test) was carried out for state-level NDVI and crop area values, which validated this result. This NDVI change was mostly due to increased crop area during Zaid and Kharif (rainy) seasons and higher rainfall from May to July. The satellite and other data (crop area and CCE numbers) analysis also showed the sowing and harvesting operations in major parts of the country went on smoothly, during the lockdown period.
<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> 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 <i>kharif</i> 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 <i>kharif</i> season of years 2017 and 2018 on the basis of different impact indicators.</p>
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.