Surface freshwater limitation explains worst rice production anomaly in India in 2002

Abstract: India is the second-most populous country and the second-most important producer of rice of the world. Most Indian rice largely depends on the monsoon timing and dynamics. In fact, 2002 was the year with lowest monsoon in the last 130+ year and the worst year for rice production recorded by FAOSTAT from 1961 to 2014. In that year, freshwater limitation was blamed as responsible for the yield losses in the southeastern coastal regions. Given the important implication for local food security and international market stability, we investigate the specific pathways of the effects that this extreme meteorological drought produced on rice yield at the national and regional levels. We integrate up-to-date climate indicators, output from hydrological model and observations from satellites for the different rice cropping cycles. The main findings show how the severe agronomical drought affected rice fields during the two main cropping cycles, one of which adopting structural irrigation, due to the lack of local precipitation and/or precipitation accumulated previously at distant locations in the upstream basins. This research highlights the need of considering the non-local freshwater dynamics in determining the soil moisture conditions in rice fields for yields assessment, modeling and forecasting.

ZAMPIERI Matteo;  CARMONA GARCIA Gema;  DENTENER Franciscus;  GUMMA Murali Krishna;  SALAMON Peter;  SEGUINI Lorenzo;  TORETI Andrea; 

2018-02-15

MDPI AG

JRC109011

2072-4292,   

http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/2/244,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC109011,   

10.3390/rs10020244,