Establishing an operational system for assessment and forecasting the impact of extreme weather events on crop production

Crop production forecasting is essential for various economic policy and decision making. There is a very successful operational programme in the country, called FASAL, which uses multiple approaches for pre-harvest production forecasting.  With the increase in the frequency of extreme events and their large-scale impact on agriculture, there is a strong need to use remote sensing technology for assessing the impact.  Various works have been done in this direction. This article provides three such case studies, where remote sensing along with other data have been used for assessment of flood inundation of rice crop post Phailin cyclone, period operational district/sub-district level drought assessment and understanding the impact of recent hailstorm/unseasonal rainfall on wheat crop. The case studies highlight the great scope of remote sensing data for assessment of the impact of extreme weather events on crop production.