Drought

Drought risk maps of rice in Odisha based on 1-mponth SPI

The scarcity of rainfall and its poor distribution and prolonged long dry spell causes drought affecting crop productivity. In India, 12% of the population is found to be susceptible to drought. In the last 100 years, Odisha experienced drought in 30 years (Jena, 2018). Sale of assets and migration are common in severe drought years (Samal and Patra, 2012), which causes a reduction in productive assets in subsequent years resulting in low yield in subsequent years. During 1960-2015, the total rice production fluctuated between 29.2 lakh tonnes to 82.98 lakh tonnes. The production was depressed too much during severe drought years (1965-66,1974-75, 1976-77, 1979-80, 1987-88, 1996-97, and 2002-03). The yield losses from drought in eastern India to be 169 kg per ha per year. Using data for the period 1970-1996, Pandey et al., (2000) have estimated the rice yield losses of 1.5 Mt per year in Odisha under severe drought years. Ravichandran and Singh (2005) have estimated the highest production losses of 3.8 Mt rice for Odisha in the year 2002-03 in comparison to 2001-02.