Assessment of agricultural drought in Rajasthan (India) using remote sensing derived Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)

Owing to its severe effect on productivity of rain-fed crops and indirect effect on employment as well as per capita income, agricultural drought has become a prime concern worldwide. The occurrence of drought is mainly a climatic phenomenon which cannot be eliminated. However, its effects can be reduced if actual spatio-temporal information related to crop status is available to the decision makers. The present study attempts to assess the efficiency of remote sensing and GIS techniques for monitoring the spatio-temporal extent of agricultural drought. In the present study, NOAA-AVHRR NDVI data were used for monitoring agricultural drought through NDVI based Vegetation Condition Index. VCI was calculated for whole Rajasthan using the long term NDVI images which reveals the occurrence of drought related crop stress during the year 2002. The VCI values of normal (2003) and drought (2002) year were compared with meteorological based Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Rainfall Anomaly Index and Yield Anomaly Index and a good agreement was found among them. The correlation coefficient between VCI and yield of major rain-fed crops (r > 0.75) also supports the efficiency of this remote sensing derived index for assessing agricultural drought.