Agriculture, in India, is strongly affected by two major hydro-meteorological disasters, namely drought and flood. Drought is a perennial feature, 16 per cent of India’s total area is drought prone and approximately, 50 million people are annually affected by droughts. Over 68-70% of total sown are India is vulnerable to drought. Similarly, around 40 million hectares of land in India is prone to floods as per National Flood Commission report.

Assessment of agricultural condition during drought or flood is essential for taking various relief and rehabilitation measures. Since both these disasters impact large area, satellite based monitoring is extremely useful.

In India, operational drought assessment using remote sensing is carried under a major programme called National Agricultural Drought Assessment & Monitoring System (NADAMS). The programme developed by National Remote Sensing Centre (ISRO) is being operationalized by Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre. Multiple satellite data (NOAA AVHRR, Terra MODIS, Resourcesat 2 AWiFS) is integrated with meteorological and ground information through a logical modelling approach to assess the agricultural drought condition of different districts/sub districts of 13 states of India. This presentation will discuss the approaches, results and gap areas of drought assessment under NADAMS taking 2012 Kharif (Rainy) season a case study.

Another study was carried out to assess the impact of flood on Rice crop in Odisha state of India post Phailin cyclone of October 12, 2013. RISAT SAR derived rice map was integrated with flood inundation map developed NRSC to map the areas of rice crop under flood. An early assessment was generated for the Government.

Both these studies highlight the role of satellite based remote sensing data for agricultural disaster impact assessment. The presentation will also discuss the new observation requirements for improving the impact assessment.