Conformity Analysis of Cotton Crop using Remote Sensing and GIS

Conformity Analysis of Cotton Crop using Remote Sensing and GIS

N. Ramarao
Research scholar,Geomatics section,Dept. of Civil Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee,Roorkee, Uttaranchal, India-247667
E-mail: nrraodce@iitr.ernet.in

Introduction
Cotton is one of the finest natural fibres available to mankind for clothing from time immemorial. The crop contributes 85% raw material to the industry. Nearly one third of India’s export earnings are from textile sector and cotton, alone which constitutes nearly 60% of raw material (CICR, 2001). It is estimated that cotton requirement in India by 2025 is around 140 lakh bales of lint and present production is about 123 lakh bales. This crop is mainly concentrated in four agro-ecological system regions, either as a sole or as an intercrop in cereal or pulse based cropping systems.

Out of the 5.1 M ha of the cultivated cotton crop, 4.1 M ha is predominantly grown in 30 districts, spread over Maharasthra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu states. The variations in the cotton productivity and production are attributed to the soil, climatic and socio-economic factors besides the market price of the commodities during the in and off-seasons of the cotton crop. Information on potential yield is useful in choosing the strategies of crop management to fill up the yield gaps.

Studies dealing with the regional level potential production are limited mainly because of the non-availability of the relevant data at appropriate scales and the analytical procedures to integrate the data. Satellite-based remote sensing data can provide the in-season spatial information on the extent and distribution of the crops. The ground-based conventional techniques of complete enumeration of the crop estimates are tedious, time consuming and subjective. The information of the spatial distribution of crops as retrieved from satellite data is highly compatible for analysis in GIS environment, which can be ingested into the crop models. The GIS facilitates the computation of regional level products by integrating the relevant factors in a spatial domain. Hence, it is envisaged in this study to integrate RS, GIS and crop models in a synergy to derive information on the potential production of cotton crop, which is useful in yield gap analysis.

The aim of this study is to match the distribution of the cotton crop in relation to its suitability based on the soil characteristics.

Study Area
Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh state, India, and lies between 15°45'-16°50’North latitude and 79°12'-80°55’ East longitude on the globe. Climate falls within the hot humid region of the country and it is not more than 40 miles from the Sea. The normal rainfall is 1000mm and July to November may be regarded as the heaviest monsoon period. The soils are predominantly deltaic alluvium (29.2%) deep and medium black soils (27.2%), red and rd loamy soils (23.3%), red soil with clay base (8.7%) and costal sands (8.7%).

Materials
In this study, soil map on 1:250000 scale, prepared by the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP), Nagpur, India was used for soil information. IRS-1D LISS-III data was used for generating information on the spatial distribution of cotton crop. The climatic parameters were assumed to be uniform in the entire district. The soil suitability was considered to be the guiding factor for deciding the spatial distribution of cotton crop.

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