Nabansu Chattopadhyay

By Chattopadhyay Nabansu, Chandras Swati and Tidke Nivedita

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy. Any changes in weather and climate in short term as well as long- term adversely affect the agricultural productivity and the production of food grain production. In order to minimise the adverse impact of weather and climate on crops, the use of agrometeorological information and agromet services has already been proved to be highly beneficial. Agrometeorological services rendered by India Meteorological Department (IMD), Ministry of Earth Sciences, are a step to contribute to weather information-based crop/livestock management strategies and operations dedicated to enhance crop production and food security. IMD is operating a project ‘Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa’ (GKMS) with an objective to serve the farming community at different parts of the country. Different states of technologies including the application of geospatial technology are being used in India for further refinement of the Agromet Advisory Services. The application of geospatial technology in generating agrometeorological information and products is very necessary for preparing need-based advisories at a high-resolution scale for the farmers in the country. In this chapter, elaborate discussion has been made on how the Geographical Information System (GIS) is being used for generating information and products using ground observations as well as satellite observations.

Part of the book: Multi-purposeful Application of Geospatial Data