**9. Conclusion**

**8.4. Development and validation of crop water requirement satisfaction index** 

covariance, ISRO-AMS and scintillometer data available in India.

**8.5. Inter-comparison of different abiotic stress indicators**

(Gujarat) and Jodhpur-Jaisalmer region (Rajasthan).

Tmin, RHmax, RHmin, rainfall, LST, NDVI, ET<sup>0</sup>

**8.6. Development of digital agro-climatic atlas for improved crop planning**

**8.7. Development of methodology for tracking of major pests and diseases**

Stage-wise crop water requirement satisfaction index is a function of potential, actual ET and crop age. This determines the level and persistence of water stress. The development of WRSI from available ET products from MODIS/INSAT or other sources is made for *rabi* crops such as wheat, mustard, potato and *rabi* rice. The validation is being carried out based on Eddy

Different satellite-based abiotic stress indicators have been reported over the past. These are Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI), Vegetation Temperature Condition Index (VTCI), water deficit index (WDI), combined deficit index (CDI) and vegetation health index (VHI). These indices use various approaches such as triangle, trapezoid, lag correlation and anomaly that use satellite-based VI, land surface temperature (LST) and rainfall. Study is being carried out on comparing the efficiencies of these indices in both *kharif* and *rabi* especially over semi-arid regions or regions having history of persistent water scarcity such as Anantpur (Andhra Pradesh), Bundelkhand region (Uttar Pradesh), Saurashtra region

The improved crop planning provides economic security to farmers. The improvement in crop planning for 'smart agriculture' depends on knowledge or information base from systematic historical data records on several agro-climatic databases valid for 127 agro-climatic regions. The long-term databases on satellite-based surface insolation, near-surface Tmax,

monthly, seasonal and annual scales are generated after bias correction and temporal filtering at 5–10 km. The ancillary databases on soil physical and chemical properties are superimposed. Geospatial analysis can be carried out to bring out national-scale digital agro-climatic atlas.

The foremost step of spatial forewarning of pests and diseases is to obtain highly accurate and high spatial-resolution weather products. Different satmet products such as OLR, insolation, UTH, wind vectors and near-surface atmospheric temperature and humidity are available from IMDPS at a resolution varying from 5 to 30 km. These data are being obtained at 30 min to 1 h temporal resolution. Some analysed fields are also being available. Standardisation of these satmet products or analysed fields with reference to in situ surface weather data will be carried out to adapt these to develop alarm zone for major candidate pests and diseases. The work is initiated in mustard crop for Alternaria blight and Aphid, SATMET product (LST, SpH and sunshine hour/rainfall) near-surface (2–3 m) utilised for weekly progress of pest (incl. diseases) infestation, and then tracking the pest (incl. diseases) through a suitable growth model can be attempted. In this study, growth model is constructed for tracking of pest (incl. diseases) infestation on mustard crop with the combination of remote-sensing information.

, AET, surface and root-zone soil moisture on

**(WRSI)**

212 Multi-purposeful Application of Geospatial Data

Under the observed and projected climate change along with the climatic variability, productivity and production of major crops in India are expected to reduce substantially. Besides, weather and climate extremes during the last one and half decades damaged standing crops extensively. Under these scenarios, operational agrometeorological services play a great role. National Meteorological & Hydrological Services in collaboration is another organisation providing services to the marginal and small farmers at present at the district level and shortly at the sub-district level for increasing the crop production.

Among others, the generation and use of different agromet information and products are important initiatives to deliver crop- and location-specific agromet advisories to the farmers in the country. Here, GIS has an important role to play. Agrometeorological products are derived parameters from meteorological/agrometeorological or other interdisciplinary information. At present, under the GKMS project, extensive data on crop, weather and satellite data are being used to prepare the advisories at different temporal and spatial levels. In view of that, geospatial technology is being used in generating a number of products using ground-based data as well as the satellite data. To provide these services on a pan India mode, station-wise point data are not enough to generate the required products at a desired level. At present, geospatial technology is used to convert discreet data into continuous data. Using interpolation technique, the data are converted to spatial spread. These data cover each and every district of India at a high-resolution scale which can be used for the betterment of agroadvisory. An interactive Web-GIS-based spatial decision support system is being developed to cater to various requirements of IMD in the field of agriculture, hydrology, weather forecasting, pest and disease forecasting. With the launching of a series of geostationary satellite, at present, vast information and products are available in India. The challenge for research is to develop new systems extracting this information from remotely sensed data, giving to the final user's near-real-time information. Satellite-based agrometeorological products and the interpretation of the same in terms of crop and soil moisture status will help the experts to frame the advisories in a better way and ultimately improve the quality of the advisories. In order to extend the support of the ongoing operational AAS, the generation of satellite products for the generation of location-specific agromet advisories is required to meet the enduser requirement. Under the operational Agromet Advisory Services, using GIS, a number of products like NDVI, VCI and PET (potential evapotranspiration) are being used to capture stress condition of crops for providing appropriate advisories. Besides, the generation of a number of information and products is in the pipeline. It is expected that with the ground data, satellite information and products and with the geospatial technology, more appropriate high-resolution and crop-specific agromet advisories will be provided in the near future and ultimately it will be possible to minimise the crop loss due to aberrant weather and also improve the economic conditions of small and marginal farmers in the country.
