Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-020-01124-5(0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().
,- volV)

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Assessment of Agricultural Drought in Upper Seonath Sub-Basin

of Chhattisgarh (India) Using Remote Sensing and GIS-Based Indices
Himangshu Sarkar1 • Sandeep Soni1 • Ishtiyaq Ahmad1 • M. K. Verma1

Received: 17 October 2019 / Accepted: 11 June 2020

Ó Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2020

Abstract
Global warming threatens the hydrological cycle, resulting in parched dry season and inferable from its serious impact on
profitability of downpour sustained crops. Drought is considered to be one of the most complex natural hazards, affecting
large community of people. The effect of drought can be minimized when the decision makers are equipped with
suitable data regarding the spatiotemporal information of crop. A study has been conducted in Durg district of Upper
Seonath sub-basin of Chhattisgarh state for assessing agricultural drought. Present study involved identification of drought
characteristics using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). NDVI data (NOAA AVHRR) were utilized to assess drought
based on inadequacy of soil moisture and rainfall. Rainfall records have been utilized in preparing maps for drought
affected areas using integrated approach of SPI and Geographic Information System (GIS). The analysis of rainfall records
indicated that extreme drought events had occurred in year 2000 and 2002. The most critical year being 2002 with more
than 60% of area under dry condition. RAI is used to compare SPI results, which shows strong correlation (R2 [ 0.95)
between them. This study investigates potential use of VCI by examining its affects to paddy yield during drought year. So
as to approve the VCI results, the relationship among yield productivity and VCI for chief unirrigated crops was plotted
indicating good relationship (R2 [ 0.62) among each other. The outcome of this study could be an essential step toward
addressing the issue of drought vulnerability and can be used as a guide for the proper utilization of reservoirs in the study
area.

Keywords Agriculture  Drought  SPI  NDVI  VCI  RS & GIS

Introduction Drought also depends on the timely onset of monsoon as

well as its potency. According to climate record, nearly
Indian economy always gets affected with the occurrence 16% of area in India comes under drought prone and every
of agricultural drought, as more than 68% people are year 45–48 million people suffer from it (Dutta et al. 2015).
dependent on agriculture. Drought may be broadly defined In the year 2002, unfavorable condition regarding
as a long-term average condition of the balance between notable drought period has been faced by India in term of
precipitation and evapotranspiration in a particular area. duration, spacing, magnitude and dispersion (Patel et al.
2012; Dutta et al. 2013). Land incapable for cultivation
throughout year is the major incidences of drought and thus
& Sandeep Soni
sandeep.soni3006@gmail.com causes to be severe and hostile setting situation for crea-
ture, farm animal, and various species of plant and poten-
Himangshu Sarkar
himangshu.ce.nitrr@gmail.com tial of biomass. So, there is an urgent need to make an
effort to monitor and mitigate drought disaster with refer-
Ishtiyaq Ahmad
iahmad.ce@nitrr.ac.in ence to span of time (Rathore 2004). The reason of drought
is not always same and it varies due to different climatic
M. K. Verma
mkseem670@gmail.com phenomenon like change in humidity level with respect to
past record, air temperature, rate of evaporation, wind
1
Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of condition, etc. A neat mitigation and preparation set up will
Technology, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

123

facilitate the choice manufacturers to cut back the impact
caused by drought. During this circumstance to manage the
adverse impact caused by drought observance of extent,
intensity, onset and duration of drought has become
necessary.
We cannot understand the effect of drought by studying
meteorological records only, even though it also plays a
major role with lower precipitation occurrence than
expected (Brown et al. 2008; Unganai and Kogan 1998).
During drought period, increase in evaporation rates is
coupled with the decrease in precipitation amounts. SPI
(Standard Precipitation Index) on the other hand may be
terribly beneficial gadget; furthermore, it is associated with
degree indicator for watching dry weather pattern of
drought which is completely supported with rainfall
information. For monitoring drought at different scale as
shown in Table 3, SPI gives an easy and flexible way
ranging between the value - 0.99 to B 2.0 indicating near
normal to extreme drought condition which is further rec-
ommended by several studies to estimate dry weather
pattern drought at different time interval for its suitability
(McKee et al. 1993, 1995, Guttman 1998; Patel et al. 2007;
Kumar et al. 2009, 2012; Quiring and Ganesh 2010; Poonia
and Rao 2012; Dutta et al. 2013; Zhang and Jia 2013;
Belayneh et al. 2014).
In many studies, satellite information has been globally
accepted for monitoring drought in present years because
of effective cost, abbreviated view and replication of data
acquisition display (Farrar et al.1994; Kogan 1995; Seiler
et al. 2000; Wang et al. 2001; Anyamba et al. 2001; Ji and
Peters 2003) dependability. Also other indexes like the VCI
(Vegetation Condition Index) &NDVI (Normalized Dif-
ference Vegetation Index) have been universally used in
various regionsto identify drought based on agriculture
with fluctuating environmental situations (Ji and Peters
2003; Anyamba et al. 2001; Wang et al. 2001; Seiler et al.
(1998, 2000); Kogan (1987, 1995); Kogan and Sullivan
1993; Nicholson and Farrar 1994). To monitoring crop
statistics, estimation of yield and dry land study; NDVI is
very useful (Aboelghar et al. 2010; Kundu and Dutta 2011;
Barati et al. 2011; Mohamed et al. 2013; Kundu et al.
2014a, b; Mondal et al. 2014). Drought characteristics are
thus recognized as important factors in water resources
planning and management. Geographical Information
System (GIS) offer powerful tools for the collection, stor-
age, analysis, management, and display of the vital infor-
mation through maps. It integrates hardware, software, and
data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all
forms of geographically referenced information. It stores
information about the world as a collection of thematic
layers that can be linked together geographically. This
simple but extremely powerful and versatile concept has
proven invaluable for solving many real-world problems.
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Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing
More complexity over major problem in the basin
hydrology are defect detection, uncertainty and flaw in
temporal data leading to lack of full composition compo-
nent when used on causal models. On this condition, sys-
tematic approach for composition of measurements is that
the variable on the category is related to this problem in the
spatiotemporal domain. GIS can be used in developing and
analyzing raw data with application of suitable technique
for estimating process of an unknown interrelationship of
input and output.
Geospatial technique has been used in the present study
to spot the spatial extent and onset of agricultural drought
exploitation and to evaluate the quality of VCI derived
from NOAA-AVHRR for observing agricultural drought at
local scale. Thus, the extent of temporal and spatial vari-
ation of meteorological and agricultural drought can be
matched. VCI estimates derived from NOAA-AVHRR are
correlated as on with SPI (Standardized Precipitation
Index). Another index viz. RAI (Rainfall Anomaly Index)
was calculated to point out the deviance of rain and yield
throughout traditional and year affected by drought as
known by future information obtained through satellite
(Van Rooy 1965; Bärring and Hulme 1991; Otun and
Adewumi 2009; Ganapuram et al. 2015). Furthermore,
yield of major rain-fed crops was compared with the esti-
mates of VCI to visualize the connection between vegeta-
tion condition derived from NOAA-AVHRR and chief
crops actual yield, respectively.
Study Area
The entire area of study being Upper Seonath sub-basin
comes within Chhattisgarh state. The catchment area of the
entire basin is found to be 7292 sq.km and is located within
the coordinates ranging from 208210 0000 N to 218220 3000 N
latitudes and 808330 0000 E to 818270 0000 E longitudes geo-
graphically prevailing upstream toward the confluence
point with Seonath River. The two districts of Chhattisgarh
state namely Durg and Rajnandgaon are covered in the
basin; details are shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1. The
southwest monsoon sets over this region during the 2 week
of June and rainfall continuous till 2 week of October. The
mean annual rainfall in the basin varies from 1005 to
Table 1 Districts covered under study area
District Area (in sq km) Percentage of total area
Rajnandgaon 3616 49.58
Durg 3676 50.42
Total Area 7292 100.00
Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

geographical area. Details of land use land cover classifi-

cation are shown in Table 2.
Thus, it can be concluded that agricultural land covers
maximum area where as tree clad and water bodies cover
very less or minimum area. The overall land use land cover
map of basin is shown in Fig. 2.The adjoining area of the
river basin have the presence of fertile soil which is smooth
in nature. Majorly four varieties of soil were found in the
entire area of study viz. Kanhar (Vertisols-clay), Dorsa
(Alfisols-Loam), Matasi (Inceptisols-Sandy clay loam) and
Bhata (Entisols-Sandy loam) which is shown in Fig. 3.
Kanhar is found in the bottommost part of the study area
generally colored in black and found suitable toward crop
cultivation. In Durg and Rajnandgaon districts, yellow and
red colored loamy type of soil viz. inceptisols is dominant
which is regionally called as Matasi (humus and nitrogen
content is low). Growing rice crop: Matasi and Dorsa (soil
from midland) were favorable and Kodo, Kulthi, Maize
and Kutki: Bhata (upland soil).

Fig. 1 Study Area (Upper seonath sub-basin)

1255 mm. Maximum rainfall depth in the basin is

1256.68 mm and minimum rainfall depth is 756.34 mm.
Land use land cover detail of the study area describes that
agricultural land occupies 4533 sq km, i.e., 62.16% of total
geographical area, built up area occupies 286 sq km, i.e.,
3.92% of total area, forest occupies 1469 sq km area, i.e.,
20.14% of total area, and tree clad occupies 262 sq km, i.e.,
3.60% of total area which has minimum area, waste land
occupies 472 sq km, i.e., 6.47% of total area, water bodies
occupies 270 sq km area which is about 3.70% of total

Table 2 Land use/Land cover (LULC) area distribution

S. no. LULC Area (in sq km) Percentage of total area

1 Agriculture land 4533 62.16

2 Built up 286 3.92
3 Forest 195 20.14
4 Tree Clad 2 3.60
5 Waste land 257 6.47
6 Water bodies 94 3.70
Total 7292 100.00
Fig. 2 Land Use Land Cover map of study area

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Fig. 3 Soil map of study area
Methodology
For the current study, methodology representing the steps
and flow of work is explained in the section below. An
overview of ArcGIS software, important features, appli-
cation of GIS in mapping of drought affected area and
methodology behind computation of SPI, RAI, NDVI, VCI
are included in this section. The working procedure of the
methodology is shown in the Fig. 4.
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
Computation
McKee et al. (1993) built up the SPI to characterize and
checking dry season. The Colorado Climate Center, the
Western Regional Climate Center and the National
Drought Mitigation Center use SPI to screen current con-
ditions of dry season in the USA. In general, different
studies have indicated the usefulness of the SPI to quantify
different drought types. The calculation of SPI requires that
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Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing
there should be no missing data in the time series. The
length of data record required should be at least 30 years.
In addition, McKee 1993 used the classification system
(Table 3) to define dry and wet events. SPI is based on the
cumulative probability of a given rainfall event occurring
at a station. For example taking base period of 3 months
(July, August and September), the distribution of total
precipitation for a station is shown in Table 3. Gamma
probability density function has been used for fitting the
values as described below,
1 x
gð x Þ ¼ e b xa1 ð1Þ
ba CðaÞ
where a is parameter for shape, b is parameter for scale,
x is precipitation quantity (a, b and x must be greater than
zero)
Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI)
Amidst various pointers for dry spell checking, Rainfall
Anomaly is the best and straight forward meteorological
drought spell list. Average annual rainfall of 14 rain gauge
stations over Upper Seonath sub-basin was collected for a
period of 33 years (1980–2013) and precipitation anomaly
for every year was determined utilizing long haul normal
rainfall of study zone. The years with low precipitation
esteems demonstrate undesirable deviance from average
occasional precipitation representing dry spell period.
Here, RAI is used to validate the SPI results. The following
simple equation was adopted to compute RAI:
RAI ¼ ðR  lÞ=r ð2Þ
where, l = Average rainfall for long term, R = Rainfall of
current year, r = Standard deviation
Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI)
So as to screen the beginning, length and spatial degree of
farming dry season, NDVI values for long stretch has been
used in the current study. The capacity of inside leaf
structure gets switched in the event of undesirable or stress
created by water on vegetative condition.
ðNIR  VRÞ
NDVI ¼ ð3Þ
ðNIR þ VRÞ
For computing NDVI, the ratio between the difference
of reflectance in close to infrared (NIR) and obvious red
(VR) band to the addition of NIR and VR of electromag-
netic range is computed. NDVI value ranges from - 1 to
? 1. In this context, vegetation condition index (VCI) is
suggested for recognizing dry spell associated stress on
vegetation and estimating the power, beginning phase,
span, elements and effects from dry spell on large
Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

Fig. 4 Flowchart of
methodology adopted Data Collection

Daily rainfall data Topographic DEM NDVI Yield

of 18 gauge station Sheet Data Data

Convert into
Monthly Values Watershed
Delineation
RAI SPI
Calculator Calculator

SPI_3 SPI_6 SPI_9 NDVI

Correlation SPI Result Max Min Average

Analysis

Identify the Working in

VCI
Meteorological Arc GIS
Calculation
Drought
Region Interpolation Correlation
Interpolation in
Analysis
Arc GIS

SPI_3 SPI_6 SPI_9

Map Map Map VCI Identify the
Map Agricultural
Drought Region

Compare
both Results

Result Validate

Table 3 Drought classification based on SPI pressurized canned products, float of satellite, overcast
spread and leftover device debasement. Dataset comprises
SPI value Class
of composite images for each day of the year (2002–2003)
[2 Extremely Wet was stacked and changed over from NetCDF configuration
1.5 to 1.99 Very Wet to raster arrangement and resized by the limit of study
1.0 to 1.49 Moderately Wet territory. The arranged layers which were resized are pro-
- 0.99 to ? 0.99 Near Normal jected using Albert’s Equal Area Projection which con-
- 1.0 to - 1.49 Moderately Dry siders the datum as WGS 84 with the help of ArcGIS. For
- 1.5 to - 1.99 Very Dry keeping the first cell dimension, the projection mentioned
\ - 2.0 Extremely Dry before was utilized. Thus for getting real estimation
regarding NDVI which ranges between - 1 and ? 1,
anticipated pictures are adjusted utilizing scaling aspect of
vegetation condition. The NDVI dataset derived from
0.003.
GIMMS has a resolution of 3.1 km spatially at rock bottom
and are rectified for disposing impact of impetuous

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 Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and Fig. 5a, b. The occurrences of drought for varying
categories were analyzed at time steps of 3, 6 and 9 month.
The simplest starting point for the study of drought is to Short- and medium-term moisture conditions were reflec-
regard it as a relative meteorological phenomenon. This ted by SPI_3 and deliver a periodic assessment of rainfall.
study investigates the potential use of Vegetation Condi- Computation of SPI_3 for the long stretch of September
tion Index (VCI) for agricultural drought assessment in uses whole of precipitation from July to September which
study area by examining its affects to paddy yield during is ordinarily wet season in the investigation bowl.SPI_3
the drought year. VCI is derived from NDVI images used to look at the beginning or the end of the rainy season.
obtained through NOAA/AVHRR satellite. VCI measures SPI_6 indicates medium-term trends in precipitation and
percentage change of the current NDVI from the historical can be very effective showing the precipitation over dis-
NDVI time series average. The objective approached for tinct seasons. Information from a 6-month SPI associated
investigating the potential use of NOAA/AVHRR to detect with anomalous stream-flow and storage reservoir condi-
agricultural drought conditions with VCI and assessing its tions. SPI_9 for the long stretch of September uses absolute
effects is achieved by developing area-specific relation-
ships between crop condition parameters and paddy yield.
The Kogan (1995) proposed VCI based on the relative Table 4 Number of Stations Affected by Dry Condition
NDVI change with respect to minimum historical NDVI Year Number of stations affected
value NDVImin. VCI can be computed as:

SPI_3 SPI_6 SPI_9
NDVIj  NDVImin
VCI ¼  100 ð4Þ 1983 1 2 2
ðNDVImax  NDVImin Þ
1984 1 1 1
Here, NDVImax and NDVImin speak NDVI to most 1985 2 2 2
extreme and least for every cell determined in each month 1986 2 3 3
and j speaks about present month record. VCI worth was 1987 1 4 5
estimated for rate extending between 1 and 100. The 1988 6 8 8
variation from half to hundred percent shows better than 1989 2 3 3
average state of vegetation though the qualities going from 1990 3 3 3
half to 35% demonstrates dry spell condition and under- 1991 1 4 4
neath 35% demonstrates serious dry season situation (Ko- 1992 0 2 2
gan, 1995). This list standardizes NDVI and isolates 1993 2 1 1
extended haul biological sign through momentary atmo- 1994 0 0 0
sphere indicator. Thus it demonstrates as superior pointer 1995 1 0 0
to check pressure created by water in comparison with 1996 0 2 2
NDVI (Sullivan and Kogan and Sullivan 1993). Imageries 1997 0 0 0
obtained through VCI are ordered based on dry spell 1998 5 7 8
seriousness proposed by Kogan (1995).
1999 2 2 2
2000 6 8 8
2001 3 0 0
Results and Discussion 2002 13 11 12
2003 1 1 1
SPI and Drought monitoring
2004 3 1 1
2005 1 0 0
The present study, the dry season helplessness in the Upper
2006 1 2 2
Seonath river basin was surveyed by reproducing verifiable
2007 5 1 2
events of dry seasons at different time steps and dry spell
2008 2 3 3
classifications by utilizing the SPI approach to observe the
2009 4 5 5
characteristics of meteorological drought event. The SPI
calculation has been done for long stretch rainfall data over 2010 4 2 3
22 rain gauge stations between the period 1983–2013 2011 4 1 1
(January 1983 to December 2013). The study revealed that 2012 3 2 2
extreme famine condition had happened in the year 2000 2013 1 1 1
and 2002. The outcomes of the result are shown in Table 4

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Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

Legend: Extremely Dry Severe Dry Legend: Near Normal Normal

Moderate Dry Near Normal Normal Moderate Wet Very Wet Extremly Wet
(a) (b)
Fig. 5 a SPI_3_6_9 year of 2002, b SPI_3_6_9 year of 2003

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 Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

precipitation from January to September, which incorpo-

rates both dry and wet seasons, because of which negative
deviation of SPI from the typical is evident. The 3 and half
year SPI might be misdirecting in locales where it is reg-
ularly dry for a 6-month time frame. Subsequently, it is
essential to have a dry spell record for longer time scales.
As there is a plausibility of getting a typical half year time
frame happening in a more drawn out term dry spell. The
impact must be obvious at longer timescales.

NDVI and Drought Monitoring

NDVI values of stretched haul for diverse fortnights of

downpour encouraged spell (July–September) were utilized
in this study. NDVI being utilized among various creators
aimed at learning dry spell, which is directed through
assorting concentrates for utilizing VCI then somewhat
misusing NDVI only. The layers showing arranged NDVI
are pictured for spotting variations over vegetative well-
being all through dry spell and wet year (Figs. 6 and 7) so Fig. 7 NDVI of the year 2003
as to evaluate the exhibition of NDVI inferred from
NOAA-AVHRR. Two continuous years viz. 2002 and 2003 VCI and Drought Monitoring
were picked for NDVI qualities and on visual elucidation a
qualification was seen between the dry spell and wet year. So as to measure dry season for an extended term per-
The range in NDVI demonstrates spatial variety in vege- ception, the NDVI inferred dry spell file VCI is utilized
tation wellbeing among the different piece of world. This
kind of spatial fluctuation has happened chiefly
attributable to the uneven dispersion of storm down fall
which is significantly less in western half than the other
part of the world.

Fig. 6 NDVI of the year 2002 Fig. 8 Vegetation Condition Index of wet year 2002

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Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

Table 5 VCI of drought year 2002 and wet year 2003

S. no Name of station Covered area (Sq km) VCI (%)
2002 2003

1 Ambagarh Chouki 1310 36.05 55

2 Balod 323 29.23 85
3 Bhilai 358 35.1 89
4 Dongargarh 721 34.17 72
5 Durg 268 38.71 88
6 Dongargaon 686 33.18 67
7 Gurur 209 34.48 79
8 Khapri 186 40.2 67
9 Madiyan 504 32.63 79
10 Gondly 259 31.69 67
11 Selud 296 32.77 75
12 Dhamdha 468 33.32 63
13 Doundi 396 32.88 81
14 Doundi Lohara 519 32.6 76
15 Gunderdehi 403 39.6 59
16 Kharkhara 447 34.27 81
17 Admabad 316 28.18 74
18 Patan 249 36.44 76

precipitation from western half even in dry season year, it

Fig. 9 Vegetation Condition Index of wet year 2003
inside the investigation region. Figures 8 and 9 shows the
condition prevailing in the year 2002 and 2003 of kharif
crops based on vegetation for different fortnights. The
beginning and degree of dry spell is unmistakably learned
through maps created for VCI of successive fortnights for
the year 2002. An unequivocal qualification among VCI of
dry season period and customary period is clearly shown in
Table 5 while normal VCI of conventional year was four-
hundredth all through the kharif season which was very
less in dry season year. Very nearly eighteen million
individuals were influenced by the dry spell of the year
2002 alone. Despite commonness of dry spell condition
over an outsized space of Chhattisgarh, a few territories
had stayed modest from the pressure created by water.
Those regional units are categorized with wet and sub-wet
style of atmosphere that serves to stay inexperienced even
all through the dry spell year. Spatial variety in vegetation
wellbeing came about because of the uneven appropriation
of precipitation contains a wide impact in variety of rural
yield of Chhattisgarh state. Since the locale gets monsoonal
stays proper for development of Kharif crops. In any case,
the vegetation condition was unmistakably worried during
the time 2002 when contrasted with 2003. The vegetation
wellbeing was discovered customary over an out sized
space of Chhattisgarh state during the time 2003. Indeed,
even some piece of the state was generally greener as a
result of enough amount of precipitation in 2003. Figures 8
and 9 represents the VCI for the wet year 2002 and 2003
respectively.
Validation
RAI has been used for this study to validate the SPI results.
For computing RAI, observed rainfall data is used for
different time interval in the year 2002 and 2003 with
linear regression and found good correlation between SPI
and RAI results. As over the study, meteorological drought
indices indicate that 2002 was severe drought year between
1983 and 2013. On the other hand as the main objective of
study is to assess agricultural drought, for which VCI has
been explored further to determine its variation temporally.
VCI series has been compared for a famine year with that
of pouring year productivity as shown in Table 6.
The validation of VCI had been done by developing a
linear regression co-relation with observed rain-fed yield

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Table 6 VCI and yield

S. no Name of block VCI_2002 (%) Yield_2002 (Kg/ha) VCI_2003 (%) Yield_2003 (Kg/ha)
productivity of drought year
2002 and wet year 2003 1 Ambagarh Chouki 36 219 55 678
2 Balod 29 413 85 952
3 Bhilai 35 231 89 727
4 Dongargarh 34 267 72 696
5 Durg 38 293 88 819
6 Dongargaon 33 208 67 481
7 Gurur 34 199 79 672
8 Khapri 40 372 67 662
9 Madiyan 32 225 79 893
10 Gondly 31 205 67 789
11 Selud 32 170 75 597
12 Dhamdha 33 182 63 504
13 Doundi 32 70 81 698
14 Doundi Lohara 32 417 76 710
15 Gunderdehi 39 387 59 629
16 Kharkhara 34 529 81 961
17 Admabad 28 327 74 790
18 Patan 36 176 76 783

Fig. 10 a and b Scatter plot 1

with linear regression line R² = 0.9791
between SPI and RAI for 0.5
3 months time scale year of 0
2002 and 2003 -4.000 -3.000 -2.000 -1.000 -0.50.000 1.000 2.000
SPI_3_2002

-1
-1.5
-2
-2.5
-3
RAI_3_2002 RAI
Linear (RAI)
(a)
1
R² = 0.984
0.5

0
-3.000 -2.500 -2.000 -1.500 -1.000 -0.500 0.000 0.500 1.000
-0.5
SPI_3_2003

-1

-1.5

-2
RAI_3_2003 RAI
Linear (RAI)
(b)

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Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

productivity during famine and corresponding pouring time
as shown in Fig. 10a, b.
Conclusion
The present examination endeavors to survey the degree of
horticultural dry spell over Upper Seonath sub-bowl by
utilizing index based on Remote Sensing Vegetation
Condition Index (VCI) and presentation of VCI by con-
trasting estimation and climatological dry season pointer
viz. Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI), Standardized Precipi-
tation Index (SPI) and yield productivity (agricultural dry
season examining factor) of dry spell and wet year corre-
spondingly. Figure 11a & b represents the relation between
VCI and yield productivity (kharif) for the 2002 and 2003
respectively.
The SPI result indicates that irregular cycle was found
inrepetition interval for drought. By analyzing SPI maps it
is found that drought event in time scale of 3, 6 and
9 months is necessary to analysis overall meteorological
drought impact because it reveals that the rainfall is not
uniform throughout the year in the study area. The result is
focused on September month because southwest monsoon
prevailing from July to September is the main time period
for agriculture. And at the end of September if the area is
suffering from drought it means the entire area will be
affected by dry condition. Also it will be affecting the
agriculture.
After analysis of 31 years (1983–2013) rainfall record it
is found that the year 1988, 1998, 2000, 2009 marks the
moderate drought year and 2002 was most critical year in
the basin area. Itis also found that in the year 2002 more
than 60% of area isunder dry condition. Selud, Balod,
Doundi, Dongargaon and Madiyan represent severe chal-
lenges to the water resources of the Upper Seonath sub-
basin. RAI is used to compare the SPI result by deter-
mining the correlation coefficient, which shows strong-
correlation (R2 [ 0.95) between SPI and RAI. So as to
approve the VCI results, the relationship among yield
productivity and VCI for chief unirrigated crops was
plotted indicating good relationship (R2 [ 0.62) among

Fig. 11 a & b Scatter plot with 600

linear regression line between
Paddy Yield of 2002 (kg/ha)

VCI and Yield productivity 500 R² = 0.6093

(Kharif) year of 2002 and 2003
400

300

200

100

0
0 10 20 30 40 50
VCI of 2002 (%) Yield(kg/hec)

(a) Linear (Yield(kg/hec))

1200
R² = 0.6281
paddy Yield of 2003(kg/ha)

1000

800

600

400

200

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
VCI of 2003(%) Yield(Kg/Hec)

(b) Linear (Yield(Kg/Hec))

123

each other. Over the study, it proves that Remote Sensing
and GIS technique can alone be used to assess drought
without considering meteorological data.
Limitations and Future Scope
The present work deals with evaluation of satellite-based
meteorological parameters as well as crop yield statistics to
arrive at combined risk. According to the results, mitiga-
tion measures are necessary in this area as they are most
critical to drought prone due to unavailability of irrigation
systems. For further study, these results can be used for
proper planning and management of water distribution
according to agriculture need due to temporal and non-
uniform distribution of rainfall. Drought spell from finan-
cial viewpoint could not be examined, and thus it is pre-
scribed to incorporate the financial information for better
understanding of vulnerable factors.
Besides as the last guide gives the wide thought
regarding zones confronting high dry spell hazard, a point
by point investigation of these territories as far as soil,
water accessibility, temperature conditions and the mone-
tary significance can help in getting ready better adminis-
tration plans.
Acknowledgement The author would like to acknowledge the support
and help provided by various organizations in providing the data for
this study which includes National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), and University of Maryland Global Land
Cover Facility Data Distribution Centre for providing NOAA-
AVHRR derived NDVI dataset. I would like to acknowledge India
Meteorological Department (IMD), India for sharing meteorological
data and Revenue Department of Chhattisgarh for providing crop
data.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author
states that there is no conflict of interest.
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