Agricultural Drought Assessment for Crop Planning at Nainital (Uttarakhand), India

In this study, daily rainfall dataset of Nainital district of Uttarakhand for a period of 21 years (1992-2012) was analysed to study the occurrence of weekly and monthly drought spells by IMD and revised IMD methods. From analysis, it was found that during rabi season, study area experienced good number of drought SMWs and months, therefore, crops having lesser water requirement and/or of short-duration should be grown/advocated. This study also confirms that there is great possibility to collect and utilize huge surplus surface runoff in water storage structures during kharif season and recycling the same for qualitative and quantitative production of various rabi crops at Nainital district of Uttarakhand.