Trends in Agro-Meteorological Parameters as Groundwater Exploitation Indicators

Abstract

Rainfall being a major component of the hydrologic cycle, influences the agricultural practices in an area. Thus, trends in rainfall as well as rainy days are of major concern to farmers. Present study focusses on understanding the rainfall trends and its spatial distribution along with the trends in vegetation. An approach where Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) procured from MODIS NDVI as an indicator for vegetation was used in this study. Mann Kendall trend test was performed on a 0.25-degree gridded data and the trends were then compared with the distribution of groundwater stress map of the study area. The study tries to examine the coupled use of NDVI and rainfall trends to decrypt the groundwater exploitation in the region. Further Ghataprabha river basin being susceptible to drought by hosting most of the significantly decreasing trend was investigated further. The propagation of severe drought return periods within the basin resembles the agro-meteorological trends. Even within the limitations of the present study, the methodology with further modifications promises to portray strong indication of groundwater exploitation. � Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.