Remote Sensing Helps Get Data on Actual Condition of Crops and Drought: ICAR-IARI Scientist

Remote sensing system helps to monitor drought condition and data helps to get information about level of severity in the area. Through data analysis, people can know actual condition of crops. Prof. Vinay Sehgal, Principal Scientist, ICAR-Indian Agriculture Research Institute, speaks on the uses of remote sensing systems in an interview with ETV Bharat's Chanchal Mukherjee.

New Delhi : Drought-monitoring system by using remote sensing technology helps to assess the actual effect on crops and loss due to low rainfall. This technology is being used for drought-monitoring to get information about the presence of drought and its level of severity and declaration, a top official of the ICAR-Indian Agriculture Research Institute said.

Explaining about the drought-monitoring system by using remote sensing, Prof. Vinay Sehgal, Principal Scientist, ICAR-Indian Agriculture Research Institute, told ETV Bharat, “In India, this technology is being used to extract information about how much rainfall happens in a particular field and what is the condition of crop there. Several states have adopted satellite technology to monitor drought situations.”

"This system not only provides data regarding drought conditions and it also helps to get information about level of severity in the area. With the help of satellite data monitoring, we can know actual condition of crops. It easily acknowledges the timing of sowing of crops and its maturity,” Sehgal pointed out.

This satellite monitoring system helps to prepare agriculture management for better produce in the country, he said.

Talking about the reasons for drought conditions in a region, Sehgal further said," low rainfall is not the whole reason for drought but it is one of the reasons. Deficiency of rainfall will turn into drought or not depending on water resources and crop management several times.

"Several parameters are in place to check drought conditions like amount of rainfall and distribution of rain in terms of dry spells. Impact on crop by measuring how much greenness or moisture is in leaves. By checking that crop meets its water requirement or not and monitoring soil moisture."

Before declaring the drought, an index is made in which important components are put to measure the condition. In the index, every component is placed to measure drought conditions like amount of rainfall, greenness of leaves, crop water requirement and soil moisture condition, he said.

In addition, Sehgal said, satellite remote sensing grabs good images of evapotranspiration in a field which is very helpful to monitor water productivity in a particular field during a season.