IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL DROUGHTS - A CASE STUDY

Abstract

There are enumerable drought definitions in the literature developed by various disciplines because it affects so many economic and social and agricultural sectors.. The phenomenon of drought can be interpreted in various ways like meteorological, agricultural and hydrological. Drought is a serious physical hazard to agriculture sector because it directly affects the food production which leads to misery of vast rural population. Hence it is necessary to make various scientific analyses of identifying agricultural dro-ught so that better management in agricultural sector can be developed. With this view a comprehensive review of import-ant meteorological, agricultural drought analysis have been carried out in this study with the help of a case study per-taining to Anantapur district (Andhra Pradesh). •.Long term rainfall base drought indices have been examined through sta-tistical analysis. Rainfall distribution especially run of wet and dry spells will have dominating effect on the crop yield. A long term weekly rainfall sequence is analysed using Stochastic models to identify :the probable sequences of dry and wet weeks. Crop production data has been analysed by study-ing its statistical characteristics and using the method of moving Averages (time series technique) a forecast model is established. An index (equivalent crop production) is deve-loped which is useful in evaluating drought identifying pars- . meters Effective deficiency of water and Effective deficiency of water with extreme conditions. Annual rainfall and total food productions have been analysed studying their' statisti-cal characteristics and comparative studies. Rainfall-crop production analysis has been carried out. for individual rain-fall crops with their unit area productions and correlations (I have been established for various kharif crops and rabi crops viz. Jowar, Bajra;. Green gram, Red gram, other pulses and Groundnut......