Abstract

Mapping of the extreme events (droughts) is one of the important strategies for consequences of increasing climatic inconsistency and climate alterations. It is one of the short-term extreme events. There is no operational practice to forecast the drought. One of the suggestions is to update mapping of drought prone areas for developmental planning. Drought indices play a significant role in drought mitigation. The main objective of the present study is to try to understand the biophysical aspects of agricultural vulnerability using the modern methods of remote sensing and GIS. Agricultural vulnerability is determined based on Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI). SPI values of rain gauge stations are interpolated to determine the spatial pattern and threshold value of drought for agricultural vulnerability. Anomaly of the NDVI and NDWI were classified to determine the agricultural drought vulnerability. These maps were integrated to classify the agricultural vulnerability of present study area namely K.V.Palli mandal of Chittoor district. The resultant map shows the spatial distribution of the areas facing agricultural drought conditions. The agricultural vulnerability map will help in the preparation of the area for mitigation measures that will in turn reduce the impacts of climatic variation on agriculture.

Description