Impact and Assessment of Meteorological Drought on Rice Based Faming System in East Garo Hills District of Meghalaya, India

A study was carried out to learn about the drought pattern and its impact on rice mono cropping in Williamnagar (East Garo Hills district of Meghalaya) having rice based mono cropping system. The rainfall analysis was done based on twelve years (1998-2009) daily rainfall data to study monthly, seasonal and yearly drought of Williamnagar based on India Meteorological Department (IMD) protocols. The average annual rainfall of Williamnagar is 3246 mm with 115 numbers of rainy days. During the twelve years period no extreme and moderate drought years were experienced, but there were mild drought occurrences in nine years. The frequency of drought month recorded for the January, February, November and December was 8, 6, 7 and 10, respectively out of 12 years of record. This study revealed that for growing rain-fed rice during monsoon farmers of this region may depend on monsoon as there was hardly any drought occurrence. This study reveal that, winter rice, may needs assured irrigation, because there is fair chance of occurrence of moderate drought during November to February due to very less post monsoon rainfall.